GLENDALE, Ariz. – Playing in front of their home fans, the Phoenix Coyotes were playing for their playoff lives Tuesday night. They fought hard but in the end, they had to watch a royal coronation.
Dustin Penner scored his first goal of the series at 17:48 of the first overtime to lift the Los Angeles Kings to a 4-3 victory over the Coyotes at the Jobbing.com Arena to take the Western Conference finals series in five games. The win sends the Kings to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 19 years against the winner of the Eastern Conference battle between the New York Rangers and the New Jersey Devils starting May 30th.
Penner’s goal came seconds after a collision between Kings forward Dustin Brown and Coyotes defenseman Michal Rozsival at the Los Angeles defensive blue line on a play that was whistled offside. Rozsival had to be helped off the ice as the Phoenix bench screamed at the game officials for a penalty call that never came.
Off the ensuing face-off, the Kings moved the puck through center ice as defenseman Slava Voynov’s bouncing pass hopped past Phoenix defenseman Keith Yandle to Penner who touched it off to center Jeff Carter. Carter drove down the wing and got a shot off that Phoenix goalie Mike Smith stopped. The rebound came out in the slot to Penner who fired it over Smith to set off a Hollywood-style celebration. The Coyotes argued for a call to nullify the play but it was not to be.
“I got a lucky bounce past (Phoenix defenseman Keith) Yandle. I got the puck and dropped it for Cartsy going to the net,” Penner said about the series-winner. “I just waited long enough for it to settle down enough to put a shot on net. I was at the right place at the right time.”
Just as they had in game four on Sunday, the Coyotes had nothing to lose and played like it. Shift after shift, Phoenix came hard at the Kings and netminder Jonathan Quick. The Los Angeles goalie made a brilliant save when he threw his right leg up in the air to fend off a shot by Radim Vrbata, keeping the game scoreless. It was just one of several stops that kept the Kings in the contest.
At the 2:47 mark, another Phoenix foray into the Kings end created the game’s first power play when Drew Doughty lost an edge and slid backwards into the goalpost. The net came off the magnets just as the Coyotes were about to have a great shot on net, forcing the referees to call Doughty for delay of game. Late in the man advantage, Quick made a save but failed to control the rebound. The Coyotes worked the puck back to the point for Keith Yandle who fed Vrbata along the half boards. Vrbata put the puck on the stick of Martin Hanzal who drove a shot that deflected off Taylor Pyatt who was screening Quick for the power play goal.
A too many men on the ice call against Los Angeles just past the mid point of the period gave Phoenix its second power play chance but it backfired. Following an icing call, the Kings’ Anze Kopitar won the offensive zone draw. Dustin Brown tapped the puck back to Doughty who ripped a shot that Kopitar deftly redirected through Smith’s legs for a game-tying short-handed goal.
“We capitalized on a power play early and had a couple of other opportunities but we couldn’t push the game along,” Phoenix head coach Dave Tippett said about his team’s play in the opening period. “We knew it was going to be a tight game and it ended up that way. We just couldn’t get on top of it.”
Compared to the prior games in the series, the second period was a shootout. Phoenix took its second lead of the contest 6:23 in off of another bad rebound by Quick. The puck ended up on the stick of Kyle Chipchura who slid it to Rostislav Klesla who came in from the point. Klesla’s backhander was knocked down by Voynov but Marc-Antoine Pouliot was there to snap a quick backhander just inside the post past Quick.
Five minutes after the Coyotes score, Los Angeles had an answer. Justin Williams and Colin Fraser did all the dirty work. Fraser made a pass off the boards to Doughty who whistled a shot through the legs of Pyatt, past another Coyotes defender and past a surprised Smith.
With the momentum on their side, the Kings continued to hound the Phoenix team looking for the lead. They got it at the 13:43 mark thanks to some nifty play and hustle. Carter stole the puck at the Phoenix line and poked it into the Coyotes zone. Penner hustled in after the disc, firing a shot that Smith stopped but again failed to control the rebound. It came out to Mike Richards who buried it into the back of the net.
The Coyotes weren’t ready to give and pushed back against the defensive-minded Kings. It took them less than three minutes to even the score with hustle and luck playing into the goal. Pyatt moved the puck along the near boards and fired it across the crease. Taking advantage of the situation, Yandle drove the net looking to get the pass on the backside of the play. The puck hit Kings defenseman Rob Scuderi and went airborne, bouncing off the shin pads of Yandle and into the net. After a review from the war room in Toronto, the score was allowed to stand.
The third period was a tense struggle as everyone in the building knew that the next score would be a big one. Quick had the first early big save when he stoned Antoine Vermette on the rebound of a Mikkel Boedker drive as Boedker was leaping over him in the crease. Smith was just as tough, thwarting the Kings at every turn.
The Coyotes had a golden opportunity to go back in front when penalties to Jarret Stoll for high sticking and Matt Greene for delay of game gave them 1:42 of five-on-three power play time. Anchored by Quick, the Los Angeles defense held the fort until Phoenix forward Martin Hanzal took an interference penalty to end the two-man advantage. Neither goalie gave ground during the tense final minutes of regulation, sending the contest into overtime.
The overtime was wild and crazy. Tensions were high and so were the tempers. There were plenty of post-whistle scrums and stick banging when calls didn’t go a team’s way. At one point, Smith had his catching glove knocked off his hand and away from the net. He went almost a minute without the mitt before being able to retrieve it and then berated the officials for not blowing the whistle. Doughty was equally incensed at a penalty he was called for midway through the extra period as well as a play that was whistled offside – a play that television replays showed was onside. All of the pent-up aggression culminated in the violent meeting of Brown and Rozsival with 2:30 left that sent the Coyotes through the roof and preceded Penner’s winner.
Asked after the game what the win meant to the Kings organization, head coach Daryl Sutter said it was all about the players.
“It’s a hell of an accomplishment for the players. That’s what it’s about. They’re the ones who sweat and bleed,” he said. “That’s what it’s about. I know from being a player. I’m proud of them guys.”
Game Notes: Phoenix did not score a goal after the second period in any of the five games in the series…Los Angeles out-shot the Coyotes in the game 51-41 including 12-6 in the overtime…Kopitar’s short-handed goal was the Kings’ fifth of the playoffs…The Kings have the opportunity to be the first eighth seed to win the Stanley Cup after knocking off the number one seed (Vancouver), number two seed (St. Louis) and third seed (Phoenix) in the West…As has become tradition, Kings’ captain Brown did not touch the Clarence Campbell trophy, emblematic of the Western Conference title. Superstition says that touching the conference trophy will guarantee a loss in the finals…Los Angeles will start the finals on the road which shouldn’t be a problem since they are now a perfect 8-0 away from the Staples Center. Games three and four will be in Los Angeles on Monday, June 4th and Wednesday, June 6th respectively.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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