Think Quick: Goalie struck in practice
LOS ANGELES — There is no way the Rangers are this lucky.
Tuesday afternoon at Staples Center, Los Angeles Kings goalie Jonathan Quick took a shot during practice off what appeared to be his right collarbone, hunched over in pain, and left the ice a few minutes later without facing another shot.
Quick was asked later if he had been shaken up. “No,” he said. Is he worried? “No,” he said. Asked where the puck hit him, Quick said “somewhere between by head and my knees. . . . I was on my way out. I had already been out there for a good 40 minutes. I was on my way out anyway.”
Kings coach Darryl Sutter assured the media after practice that he was not concerned about Quick.
“No,” Sutter said. “Jonathan is a tough guy. He was the first guy out of the (locker) room.”
Still, Quick’s health now becomes the most important sit uation to monitor enter i ng Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night. Quick, 28, won the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP in 2012 when he carried L.A. to the first championship i n franchise history, and his absence would be a major blow.
Former Kings backup Ben Scrivens shut out the Rangers, 1-0, on Nov. 17 at the Garden, but L.A. traded Scrivens to Edmonton in January. So Quick’s backup now is Martin Jones, 24. Jones posted a respectable 12-6-0 regular-season record with a 1.81 goals-against average and .934 save percentage.
He has appeared in relief of Quick twice during the playoffs, stopping all seven shots he has faced in 56 minutes. But those two appearances marked his first career NHL postseason action, and he has never faced the Rangers in the playoffs or regular season in his brief career.
The Rangers have had good fortune with opponents’ goaltenders already this spring, facing a backup goalie in eight of their 20 playoff matches.
Flyers No. 2 Ray Emery started the first three games of the first round before No. 1 Steve Mason returned from a concussion. Then after Marc-Andre Fleury started all seven games for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round, Montreal’s No. 1 Carey Price went down in a collision with Chris Kreider in the second period of Game 1 in the Eastern Conference final. The Blueshirts faced third-stringer Dustin Tokarski the rest of the way.