LOS ANGELES – Is the third time the charm for the Los Angeles Kings? They better hope so. Lose game six tonight and they have to return to Newark and face the New Jersey Devils in a game seven.
Photo by Jack Lima
Kings forward Anze Kopitar knows the club is feeling the pressure.
“ failed a couple times now. We all know how big this is. It would certainly be nice to finish it off at home and get it done,” Kopitar said after practice Sunday.
But the Kings need more consistent play. On Saturday in Newark, they played well in spans of the game but not the full 60 minutes.
“ Just stay a little more consistent. I thought we had a pretty good period last night, but then we got away from it a little bit,” Kopitar said in defining what the Kings need to do Monday night. “That’s probably the case. When you do go down, you try to do a little extra stuff, you go away from your program. Just staying on the program, playing 60 minutes, more than that if we need to.”
For Mike Richards, it is the issue of distractions when at home. Text messages, phone calls, bandwagon jumpers, and those wanting to be part of the whole experience.
“ Well, it’s tough. You get a lot of texts and calls. People want to come and be a part of it. At the same time it’s something you have to handle as a professional, limit distractions, focus on the game,” Richards said.
Despite the pressures and obligations and the tiring processes, Richards was quick to say it was something he was enjoying.
“ I wish it was over, but… It’s fun. The process is fun. Everyone was nervous for Game 4. Now we’re back to having fun again like we were through the whole playoffs and the season. We were nervous before. I thought we played a pretty good game last night, but didn’t get the result that we wanted. We’re going to do the same thing we’ve done all year, try to get better every game.”
Veteran Simone Gagne defended his team and their response to the perceived adversity in the Final series.
Photo by Jack Lima
“ I wouldn’t agree with that. I think we had a lot of it this year with the coaching change, battling to get to the playoffs. That takes a lot of character to get through that. We know how to deal with it,” Gagne said. “It seems in the playoffs, we had it a little bit easier than people think. At the same time we had to go into Vancouver and win Game 5, and Phoenix Game 5. Now we have another challenge in front of us. It’s going to be the first time we’re in the series 3-2. It will be a first challenge for us and we’ll take that, for sure.”
Drew Doughty took a different perspective when discussing adversity for the Kings.
“ No. Played the first place, second place, third place teams in our conference. Going into those matchups, you can’t say we didn’t face adversity at that point. We did a good job of dealing with it in those three series. Now it’s just another point where we have to do it again,” Doughty said to contrast the current state of the Kings and the series.
Head coach Darryl Sutter was asked about the position the Kings are in now and he was also quick to put a positive spin on his response.
“We’re at a really good place. How did we get here? I mean, we’ve been in a good series, that’s for sure. We thought we played a heck of a game last night,” Sutter said. “I think I said it after the game to some of the guys that were there, you know, we got breaks the first two games, they got breaks the last two games, right? We start again. Try and recreate that again tomorrow. If we play as well as we did last night, I like our team.”
Photo by Jack Lima
As for the adversity, Sutter took yet another route to define the series for the Kings and looked at it from a game-to-game perspective.
“Well, there is adversity in every game at some point always. I don’t think not having long series has any bearing on anything,” Sutter explained. “The farther you go, the better the teams are that you play. You know what, that’s why they’re in it. They’re low-scoring games. You look at it, four of the games were 2-1 hockey, other than an empty-net goal the last few seconds. If there’s any challenge with us, the only challenge with our team is that we’re not scoring a lot of goals. So that’s something that we faced, this group, most of the year, right? “
“Every little mistake is magnified.”
And there is getting to be precious little room or time for mistakes now.
Game six drops the puck at 5:00 PM Pacific at the Staples Center. Look for the arena to be energized but anxious as the Kings and Devils square off once again.
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