Kings celebrate Stanley Cup victory with rally, parade
Dustin Brown stood on a flatbed truck and raised the big silver trophy above his head once again. The air in downtown Los Angeles filled with a blizzard of silver-and-black confetti.
The Los Angeles Kings are Stanley Cup champions for the first time, and a celebration 45 years in the making certainly appeared to be worth the wait.
The Kings rode double-decker buses and flatbed trucks in a parade through the city centre, moving slowly up Figueroa Street past thousands of roaring fans. Brown and playoff MVP Jonathan Quick then raised the Cup outside Staples Center, where the Kings completed their 16-4 rampage through the postseason Monday night by eliminating the New Jersey Devils.
“It was more than you could ever expect,” forward Dustin Penner said. “It’s one of those moments you want to live over and over again. It’s amazing to hear all the support, and to put faces to the cheers we’ve heard all year.”
The Kings gathered inside the arena for a packed rally, with fans waving towels and giving repeated standing ovations to every speaker. coach darryl Sutter even pumped up the fans with a series of joyously out-of-character fist pumps, and forward Anze Kopitar riled them up even more.
“It’s too much fun not to win it again, so let’s go get it,” Kopitar said.
Quick, the Conn Smythe Trophy winner, then cracked up the crowd with profane praise of his teammates in a ceremony live on local television. But even a mid the pomp and profanity of a major party, the Kings’ affection for each other broke through.
“Just to see the looks on their faces after they won it is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” said Sutter, the midseason replacement who revitalized the Kings’ season. “It’s just awesome, awesome, awesome.”
The Kings will have all summer to absorb what they accomplished, but the superlatives are remarkable. Los Angeles is the first No. 8 seed to win the Stanley Cup, and only one modern NHL team did it in fewer games. The Kings took a 3-0 lead in all four playoff series — an NHL first. Los Angeles never played an elimination game, only getting stretched even to Game 6 once, and only trailed for about 184 minutes in the entire post-season.
The Kings finished third in the Pacific Division, albeit only two points behind winner Phoenix. They were the NHL’S lowest-scoring team for most of the regular season before getting it together in late February around the time Jeff Carter arrived in a trade with Columbus.
“I don’t think we really had the season we expected of ourselves, and I don’t think we were an eight seed,” said defenceman Rob Scuderi, still sporting black stitches in his nose and upper lip after New Jersey’s Steve Bernier slammed him head first into the boards in Game 6, resulting in a five-minute power play in which the Kings scored three goals and essentially wrapped up the Cup.
The Stanley Cup has already made an extensive tour of Los Angeles, starting at a Hermosa Beach pub just a few hours after the Kings claimed it. The Cup was in Brown’s backyard Tuesday morning, where his two oldest sons drank chocolate milk out of the bowl while wearing their SpiderMan pyjamas.
“It feels great,” said Kopitar, the playoffs’ scoring co-leader with linemate Brown. “You want to have parades every year. It’s going to be tough, but we think we have the team to do it.”
The Kings are excited they have a strong chance of defending their title next season with much the same roster. General manager Dean Lombardi already has signed most of L.A.’s key contributors for at least one more year, with only forwards Penner, Jarret Stoll and Colin Fraser headed for unrestricted free agency.
“I’d say it’s pretty good,” Penner said of his chances of returning to Los Angeles. “I want to be back.”
Pearn named Jets
assistant coach
It’s a bit of a homecoming for new assistant Winnipeg Jets coach Perry Pearn, who cut his NHL teeth with the old Jets just before they left for Phoenix in 1996.
“I didn’t want to leave when I left the last time,” Pearn said Thursday at a news conference to announce his hiring.
He was an assistant to head coach Terry Simpson in 1995-96, but left for the Ottawa Senators when the Jets headed south.
Sens keen to resign
D-man Karlsson
Bryan Murray has every intention of re-signing defenceman Erik Karlsson.
The Senators GM said Thursday the two sides have held preliminary talks. He hopes to further discussions next week when both sides will be in Las Vegas for the NHL awards.