GLENDALE, Ariz – Heading into game one of the Western Conference Finals, the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Kings were riding a perfect 5-0 mark playing on the road as well as having won five straight games overall. They were also sitting on a full week off from game action after sweeping the St. Louis Blues.
Sunday night at the Jobbing.com Arena, neither streak ended and there was no rust to be found as Dwight King scored two goals and Jonathan Quick 25 shots to lead the Kings to a 4-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes. The third-seeded Coyotes now need to gather themselves together before game two Tuesday night in Glendale or face going to Southern California down two games.
“I thought their whole team was better than our team. We weren’t close in that game,” Phoenix head coach Dave Tippett said after the loss. “We got beat in every facet of the game. Hopefully we take some lessons from it and we can be better next game.”
A lot of the talk prior to the game was about not only the fact that neither team was expected to be in the conference final but that once again the feature match-up would be between the pipes. For the second straight series, Phoenix netminder Mike Smith would be facing a Vezina Trophy candidate in Los Angeles goalie Quick, who was putting up impressive numbers in the first two rounds.
The Kings came out of the locker room hotter than the Arizona weather in the first period, jumping all over the host Coyotes. Smith, no stranger to seeing lots of rubber, held the fort early on but the question became how long he could stem the tide.
The answer to that was 3:53 as the Kings struck quick for the game’s opening goal. The play started when Drew Doughty began a rush into center ice before feeding Dustin Brown on the near wing. Brown carried into the Phoenix end and tried to send the puck toward the net. It was blocked into the air and came back to Brown who somehow made a drop pass between three Coyotes to Anze Kopitar. Kopitar skated into the slot untouched and rifled a backhander through a screen to the top corner past Smith’s catching glove.
The goal was part of a Kings’ onslaught against Smith, who faced eight shots in the first seven minutes before Quick even had an opportunity to make a stop. Smith’s best stop of the stanza came during a Los Angeles power play when a shot hit a Kings forward in front and rebounded to Jeff Carter. Smith dove across the crease to keep Carter from sliding the puck into the open net.
Phoenix caught a break at the 13:26 mark when they caught the usually sure-handed Quick napping. With both teams changing lines and the puck in the neutral zone, Daymond Langkow pushed the puck to Derek Morris who everyone thought was going to scale the puck into the Kings end and complete the change. He instead wound up from the red line with a slap shot that looked like it took a skip hop near the blue line. Whatever the puck did, it caught Quick off-guard and beat the netminder between his right leg and arm to tie the score.
Statistically the Kings dominated the first period, out-shooting the Coyotes 17-4. It could have been more had it not been for Phoenix recording 11 blocked shots in the stanza.
“It was really important that we had a good start. It wasn’t so much scoring or any of that stuff. We just had to match their start,” Kings head coach Darryl Sutter said about his team’s first period and overall play. “We were able to overcome a rare bad goal against us and just have the resiliency to stay with it.”
Tied at one at the start of the second, Phoenix had an opportunity to jump in front with 1:42 of power play time. Los Angeles circled the wagons around Quick and held the Coyotes at bay. The team defense was never more evident than when around the four minute mark, Quick was bowled over and knocked away from the crease. Phoenix was able to get the puck in front of the net but failed to score as Quick and no less than four of his teammates dove in front of the net to keep the puck out.
Just past the eight minute mark of the period, the Kings went back in front. Trevor Lewis got to a loose puck just inside his blue line and got it to Mike Richards who broke out with King on a two-on-one break. Richards held the biscuit and finally fired it on net. Smith made the save but King got to the rebound and backhanded it over Smith’s right leg and into the back of the net.
The teams traded blows both on the shot board and in the hits column for the next ten minutes as the deep-seeded animosity between the two Pacific Division rivals bubbled to the surface. The Coyotes pulled back even with just under two minutes left before the second intermission thanks to the hustle of forward Antoine Vermette. Shane Doan sent a dump-in behind the Kings net where Quick came out to play it. As he left it for his defenseman, Vermette cut in between Quick and the net, jamming the defender against the boards. The puck squirted to Doan who quickly fed Mikkel Boedker who fired it home past a scrambling and surprised Quick.
Despite being out-shot 34-18 over the first 40 minutes, the Coyotes were still in the game with a chance to win. Whatever confidence Phoenix had as the final period started was quickly deflated by the Los Angeles quick-strike offense. Two minutes in, Justin Williams made a defensive zone pass to Slava Voynov who looked up and saw Brown streaking through center ice. Voynov made a pretty tape-to-tape pass that Brown caught in stride. Getting some separation from defender Rostislav Klesla, Brown whipped a laser from the far circle past Smith’s blocker arm to light the lamp.
Playing from behind and facing a tough opponent, the Coyotes summoned everything they had trying to get the game-tying score. They continually tried to crash the net, making it hard for Quick to see let alone get control of the puck. Unfortunately for Phoenix, Quick was back on his game after allowing the two goals, keeping them from finding the back of the net. Down the other end, Smith, who made 44 saves, was keeping his team in the contest with several key stops including a glove save on a rocket by Willie Mitchell with eight minutes left.
Tippett pulled Smith with a little over a minute left as his team pressed for the equalizer. King sealed with victory for the Kings with an empty net goal from center ice with 47 seconds remaining.
Game Notes: Final shots in the game were 48-27 in favor of the Kings…Los Angeles went 0-for-4 on the power play while Phoenix went 0-for-5.Both teams had two opportunities cut short by penalties…The Kings have now killed off 24 straight opposition man advantage situations…This is the Coyotes first trip to the conference finals dating back to when the team was in Winnipeg. For the Kings, it is their first time in the conference finals since 1993…Phoenix finished the game with 25 blocked shots to 11 for Los Angeles. The Coyotes also out-hit the Kings 39-38.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.