Sunday 15 June 2014

A Hollywood End to a Hollywood Run

     For the second time in three seasons, the Los Angeles Kings are the Stanley Cup champions. Unlike in 2012 when the breezed by the first three rounds, this time around it was a lot more harder. Here is how their remarkable run happened.
    In the first round against the San Jose Sharks, the Kings were down 3-0. At the time, only three teams in the history of the league had come back from that type of deficit. But the Kings fought their way to become the fourth team in the league to accomplish the feat. Their second round opponents, the Anaheim Ducks held a 3-2 lead on the Kings but again with timely scoring from Justin Williams and terrific goaltending from Jonathan Quick won the series in seven. They advanced to the Western Conference Finals for a third straight year against the Chicago Blackhawks. While the Kings had a 3-1 series lead, the Hawks managed to force a game 7 but the Kings won thanks to some overtime magic from Alec Martinez. The finals pitted the Kings against the New York Rangers. A final that commissioner Gary Bettman so desperately wanted. The first two games saw the Kings completely outplayed but they found a way to win both in overtime. Game three went much better as the Kings were dominant and win 3-0. In game four, they had unlucky breaks which benefited the Rangers as they forced a game five by winning 2-1. In that game five, the game went back and fourth. Williams opened the scoring for the Kings but they found themselves trailing 2-1 until a former Ranger Marian Gaborik tied it up in the third. Game five went to double overtime and once again, it was Martinez who scored the winner to give the Kings the cup and become the first team to clinch the cup on home ice in overtime since 1980 when Bob Nystrom scored to give the Islanders their first of four cups against the Philadelphia Flyers.
        To say the least, the run that the Los Angeles Kings went on would be a perfect Hollywood story. That is because they became the fourth team in history to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, playing in three consecutive game 7's and to cap it all off, having Martinez score the overtime winner on home ice to win their second cup in three years. This is truly an ending made for an amazing Hollywood movie.

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