Tuesday, June 12, 2012

The LA Kings are the 2011-2012 Stanley Cup Champions

via The Hockey Zone (http://thehockeyzone.webs.com/)

The Kings wrapped up the Devils in style, dominating from start to finish in a 6-1 thrashing of New Jersey en route to their first Stanley Cup in franchise history. What an incredible run by the Kings, 16-4, 10-1 on the road and they become the 1st 8th seed in NHL history to win the Cup. A bitter sweet win for ex-Flyers Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, and Simon Gagne who all won their first Cup after losing in the finals 2 years ago with Philly. The Conn Smythe Trophy was won by Jon Quick, and every hockey fan across the world saw that one coming as he was simply fantastic. Tough loss for the Devils, they face an uncertain offseason with Parise a free agent and Brodeur's future uncertain. Tons of credit to Darryl Sutter and Dean Lombardi for taking the Kings here. What a great playoffs, and the LA Kings are the last team standing!

To talk about the game, it was all Kings from start to finish. However, it didn't come without controversy as Steve Bernier was given a 5-min penalty and game misconduct for his hit from behind on Rob Scuderi. While it was the right call, Scuderi turns last second and it was a tough one to judge. The Kings went on to score 3 goals on the PP, with Brown, Carter then Lewis all tallying goals. After 1 the Kings were up 3-0, and they made it 4-0 early 2nd when Carter got his 2nd of the game. The Devils managed to get 1 before the end of the period, but that was all they would get past Jon Quick. Trevor Lewis got his 2nd of the game in the empty net, and Matt Greene scored seconds later to make it up to 6-1. The game ended and that marks the end of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, congrats to the LA Kings on their great run

It has been a pleasure to write about the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the last 2 months, and tonight was a fitting end for the LA Kings. It was great to see so many Kings with their first cup, Brown, Doughty, Richards, Carter, Gagne, Kopitar, Mitchell and so on. Darryl Sutter finally gets his 1st cup, what a transformation he did with this team after taking over halfway through the season. Dean Lombardi deserves so much credit as well, many Kings fans were calling for him to be fired as well as for him to trade Dustin Brown, but he stayed on course and made the right decisions (like trading for Carter). Just a wonderful win for the Kings and the town of LA, first Stanley Cup in franchise history. The 3 stars were:

3. Jeff Carter - 2 big goals for the ex-flyer, he goes from the worst team in the league to Stanley Cup Champion months later. What a great playoffs for Carter, really got his game going after a tough year
2. Jon Quick - Quick wasn't particularly amazing in this game, but he deserves all the credit for the Kings being here. The young goaltender was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP
1. Dustin Brown - The Kings leader was everything and more in this Cup clinching win, he set the tone from start to finish. Brown had a goal and 2 assists, and finished tied with Anze Kopitar for the playoff lead with 20 points

This concludes the end of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it has been a pleasure to write about all that I've witnessed in the last two months. Look for tons of coverage on the NHL Draft and Offseason in the next few months. Congrats to the LA Kings for winning their first Stanley Cup in Franchise history!

I finished the playoffs 9/15 in series predictions

-Joel Forman - Colorado Avalanche News (STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF EDITION)

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