Kings, Blackhawks back for encore
ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks will not surrender the spotlight in the Western Conference.
The teams have played the most playoff games in the NHL over the past three seasons, each winning a Stanley Cup, and will meet again in the conference finals, beginning today in Chicago.
Los Angeles arrived fashionably late, although coach Darryl Sutter has only sarcastically referred to his grinding team as movie stars. After rallying from a 3-0 series deficit against the San Jose Sharks in the first round, the Kings climbed out of a 3-2 hole to oust the top-seeded Anaheim Ducks with a 6-2 victory on Friday. They have won six straight games in which they were facing elimination.
“We have the inner arrogance and the quiet confidence,” said right wing Justin Williams, who scored the Kings’ first goal on Friday and has six Game 7 goals in his career. “Whatever you want to call it that’s in the dressing room. I look around and I trust that everyone is going to do their job and get it done.”
Collectively, the Kings’ 19 players improved to 63-4 in career Game 7s on Friday. Williams, Mike Richards and former Blue Jacket Marian Gaborik are each 6-0, and each turned in a multipoint performance on Friday.
“Our big players step up for these elimination games and always have,” defenseman Drew Doughty said. “We relish these opportunities as a team and as individuals.”
A challenge for the Kings could be even getting to Game 7 against Chicago. Since 2009, the Blackhawks are 8-0 in Game 6 while holding the series lead, including six victories on the road. The St. Louis Blues could not reach Game 7 against Chicago despite winning the first two games of their first-round series.
The Blackhawks’ next opponent, the Minnesota Wild, had Game 6 in their building, where they won Games 3 and 4. They lost Game 6 after a bounce off a stanchion set up an overtime goal for Patrick Kane.
Kane has four overtime goals in his playoff career. He scored one in each series this season, one to eliminate the Kings last season and one to win the Stanley Cup in 2010.
Kane and Jonathan Toews each have 10 points this postseason, and Marian Hossa and Brent Seabrook are tied for the team lead with 11.
The last time the Kings lost an elimination game was in last year’s conference final against the Blackhawks, who won the series in five games. Three of Chicago’s four victories came by one goal, including a doubleovertime epic in Game 5.
“We owe ’em one,” Doughty said.
Both teams returned their core players from last season, including the Kings’ Anze Kopitar, who leads the NHL with 19 playoff points. But near the trade deadline, Los Angeles acquired Gaborik from the Blue Jackets. He is now the postseason’s leading goal-scorer, with nine in 14 games.
“I think everyone knows that Gabby’s had a really, really awesome playoffs for us,” said Dustin Brown, the Kings’ captain. “With each round we go, the stage gets bigger for him.”
The Kings, the 2012 Stanley Cup champions, are the second team since the 2005 lockout to make the conference finals three consecutive seasons, a feat accomplished by the Detroit Red Wings from 2007 to 2009. But the Blackhawks are the only team to win the Stanley Cup twice in that span, in 2010 and 2013.