Kings beat Devils for first-in-franchise Stanley Cup win

The Los Angeles Kings overpowered the New Jersey Devils 6-1 to become the NHL Stanley Cup champions.

|
Mike Blake/Reuters
Los Angeles Kings captain Dustin Brown hoists the Stanley Cup into the air after the Kings beat the Devils in Game 6 to win the first championship for the franchise.

The Los Angeles Kings' 45-year Stanley Cup quest ended in a triumphant flourish of blood, sweat and power-play goals. After missing two chances to claim the title last week, the long-suffering Kings are NHL champions for the first time.

Hooray for Hockeywood.

Jeff Carter and Trevor Lewis scored two goals apiece, playoff MVP Jonathan Quick made 17 saves in his latest stellar performance, and the Kings beat the New Jersey Devils 6-1 Monday night in Game 6 of the finals, becoming the first eighth-seeded playoff team to win the league title.

Captain Dustin Brown had a goal and two assists for Los Angeles, which ended its dominant two-month playoff run before a frenzied bunch of their heartiest fans, incessantly waving towels and glowsticks. The crowd including several dozen Kings faithful who have been at rinkside since the team's berth as an expansion franchise in 1967, waiting for one glimpse of the Stanley Cup.

After taking a 3-0 series lead and then losing two potential clinching games last week, the Kings finished ferociously at Staples Center just when the sixth-seeded Devils appeared to have a chance for one of the biggest comebacks in finals history.

One penalty abruptly changed the tone of a series. Brown, Carter and Lewis scored during a five-minute power play in the first period after Steve Bernier was ejected for boarding Rob Scuderi, leaving the veteran defenseman in a pool of blood. Quick took it from there, finishing his star-making postseason by allowing just seven goals in six finals games.

"You never know. You get to the dance, you never know what's going to happen," Brown said. "We calmed down after losing two. It was the first time we had done that all playoffs, and we finally got off to a good start."

Martin Brodeur stopped 19 shots for the Eastern Conference champion Devils, just the third team to force a Game 6 in the finals after falling into an 0-3 hole. Rookie Adam Henrique ended Quick's shutout bid late in the second period after the Kings had built a 4-0 lead, but Lewis and Matt Greene added late goals for the Kings.

The Kings went 16-4 after barely making the playoffs, eliminating the top three seeds in the Western Conference in overwhelming fashion before matching the second-fastest run to a title in NHL history. Although the Devils gave them a little trouble, the Kings took down every opponent in their path after an inconsistent regular season.

Los Angeles boasted a talented, balanced roster that peaked at the absolute perfect time under midseason coaching hire Darryl Sutter. Brown, just the second American-born captain to raise the Cup, accomplished what even Wayne Gretzky couldn't do in eight years in Los Angeles.

Quick added one more dominant game to his run, while Brown capped his own impressive playoff work by finishing with 20 points, tied for the postseason scoring lead with linemate Anze Kopitar.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Kings beat Devils for first-in-franchise Stanley Cup win
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0611/Kings-beat-Devils-for-first-in-franchise-Stanley-Cup-win
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe