KINGS RULE
L.A. beats N.Y. in double OT for 2-0 lead,
LOS ANGELES— It was John Tortorella who said “safe is death” before he embraced it, and it caught up to him in New York and then in Vancouver, where he tried to hide out in a little place across the border. Safe seems comforting until it comes to get you, and the ceiling caves in.
These L.A. Kings had spent the 2012 playoffs with an aggressive version of safe: they had the puck and a white-hot goaltender and no mercy, and it worked.
This version, though, is so different. There is no safety. There is no white-hot goaltender. The New York Rangers don’t work for Tortorella anymore, and the Kings have become some different beast entirely, and there is just hockey that slides and swings and flies, full of mistakes and never over. The first overtime of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final was chaos, a Jackson Pollock painting come to life, a post and penalty kills and jeopardy. Thrilling stuff. It solved nothing.
And the second overtime had began to slow until Willie Mitchell loosed a shot from the point that was deflected by Dustin Brown and got through at the 9:34 mark, giving the Kings a 5-4 doubleovertime victory over the New York Rangers and a 2-0 lead in the series.
It was the 15th multi-goal comeback of these playoffs, and the third by Los Angeles in the last week.
This was the third straight year the first two games of the final went to overtime, including the Kings’ victory in 2012, but what a road to get there this time. Los Angeles goaltender Jonathan Quick allowed seven goals in six games in the 2012 Stanley Cup final, and he is at six goals through two games so far. In the entire 2012 run, Quick allowed at least three goals three times in 20 games. The 2014 Kings played their 23rd game Saturday night, and Quick’s three-goals-or- more counter is sitting at 12.
The Kings can’t play safe anymore because the safety net has holes in it. And still, despite not holding a lead during play in either of the first two games — despite not leading at any point since Game 5 against the Chicago Blackhawks — Los Angeles is still two wins from a Stanley Cup.
The Rangers announced they were in this series from the moment that defenceman Ryan McDonagh hit Jeff Carter sideways and hard.
Carter’s left knee flexed out of place and he limped off to the room. Carter came back and in the meantime, L.A.’s Jarret Stoll hit Girardi from behind, and Girardi skated off, a little hunched. He came back, too. Then McDonagh hit Tyler Toffoli and the two went nose to nose before McDonagh pushed him away. This was angry, big-boy, ice-tub-and-painkillers hockey. “Yeah, we knew they were going to push, test us physically,” said McDonagh between games. “We understand they’re going to be physical on us, and we’re not going to shy away from it for sure. We’ve got to look for opportunities to be physical on them for our forecheck, our speed. Doesn’t necessarily have to be a big hit, but utilizing our legs, getting on the right side of guys, creating turnovers that way is part of being physical, too. We feel we can play that game, as well.” The Rangers got their first goal off a turnover from the normally reliable Justin Williams after he was hit by Carl Hagelin, and got their second goal off a Matt Greene turnover that ended with a McDonagh shot hitting Mats Zuccarello at the side of the net and dropping to his stick with 1:12 left in the first. It was the fourth time in five games that the Kings had fallen behind 2-0 to start a game, and they had won two of the first three. During their 2012 Cup run, the Kings won five games in which they scored two goals or fewer. So far this year, that has happened once.
And like clockwork, the first Kings goal came 1:46 into the second period on a strange play that Stoll finished. Same old script, Hollywood.
Except sequels have to find new ways to cover the same ground, so New York’s Martin St. Louis scored 10 minutes later on a power play with one of those laser shots of his, and 11 seconds after Mitchell pulled the Kings back to within one with a power-play point shot, Mitchell whiffed on a bouncing puck behind his own goal and Derick Brassard popped it in. 4-2, Rangers.
But the Kings don’t stop. They never stop. Dwight King deflected in a Greene shot two minutes into the third while all but sitting on Lundqvist — McDonagh was a part of that, but Lundqvist thought it was goaltender interference and may not have been wrong— and it was 4-3, and then Gaborik tired it at the 7:36 mark on a McDonagh giveaway, and three different twogoal leads were gone, never to return. Overtime loomed, and then it loomed again.
There is no safety in this series. There is nowhere to hide. Nothing is certain, except this: through two games this series could have gone any which way, and it won’t be over until someone is shaking hands. And even then, better make sure.