Image from BostonHerald.com
On Wednesday night, the La Kings were poised to win the revered Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history, but one thing stood in their way: The New Jersey Devils. The Kings were up by three game wins and they needed one more win to get the cup on home ice, but the despite the Devils being down they were not out as they pulled through to get their first win of the series. While the Devils were able to get in at least one win, this does not mean that the Kings are out of this yet. The devils have not forced a game seven yet, they have only pushed a game five to take the Cup back to Newark for another chance to even the series.
As a flyers fan, I hate the Devils, if you couldn’t decipher that in my other articles, so I’ve been rooting for the Kings as my Western Conference team. Considering that the Devils have won the cup before, I would rather it go to the team who has never been able to hoist the cup above their heads. And yeah ex-flyers captain Mike Richards is with the Kings now, so I’m still going to support him even though he’s no longer a flyer. Even with this support, I had a feeling that the Kings were not going to sweep the Devils.
First of all the Devils were not going to go down without a fight, and they didn’t get to the Stanley Cup Finals to be swept by the unexpected Kings, who were the 8th seed going into the playoffs. Secondly we have to look at the other series the Kings have played in these playoffs, to determine if they could sweep. When reviewing how they played, they have done really well for themselves, but the only team they actually swept was the St. Louis Blues. Of the other series, the only game the Kings have lost was game four, so it was not surprising when they lost on Wednesday night as this was game four. The surprising thing about this particular game was that no goals were scored until the final period, and this is mostly due to both team have great goalies.
Devils Elias got on the board first, but since this Devils goal was followed by a Kings power play, Kings Doughty tied the game with a power play goal. This kept fans optimistic as the Kings still had half a period left to score or to force an overtime period. The Kings were unable to do either, when Henrique gave the Devils a one goal lead. It appeared that after three games, the Devils finally figured out how to beat Quick. The Devils sealed the victory with seconds left in the game when Quick was pulled for an extra attacker and Kovalchuk scored the empty netter giving the Devils a 3-1 win.
The Kings are still one win away from the Cup, despite this loss. If they play tomorrow night’s game in Newark like their other series, we might be seeing them hoisting it above their heads in Devils territory. But this is for the Stanley Cup and this is hockey, so anything can happen and I’m not making any predictions yet.
