When the Kings came into the Stanley Cup Playoffs, neither did the fans or the team know for a fact that they would be entering the second round of the playoffs. Last night was a game to be remembered. The Kings, a team that looked weak, started the first round of the playoffs being down 0-3 against a San Jose Sharks team that looked strong and ready to sweep the first round series against their arch rivals of Los Angeles. The Sharks outscored their archrivals, 17- 8 in the first three games and giving San Jose the high spirits of winning the series. But little did they know that the Kings would come back and tie the series in the next three games. In the first three games the Kings allowed 17 goals in the net but in the next three games the Kings only allowed 4 goals in the net while the Kings netted 13 behind Antti Niemi’s goal.
Game 7 took place Wednesday night and little did we know that the Kings would be entering the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and eliminating a San Jose team that looked strong and powerful in their ice court. In the first half, the game went scoreless, with Jonathan Quick looking better than ever in front of the goal post and the Kings looking phenomenal on the ice. In the second period, the Sharks opened the scoring at 00:28 with Matt Irwin netting one behind Quick. But the Kings didn’t give up. In a power play that went 5 against 3 in the ice, Drew Doughty scored his first goal of the series at 4:57 to tie up the game with an assist coming from Jeff Carter. The Sharks had a chance to tie it with Marleau shooting at the net but Quick was too fast and snatched the puck off the goal line, which was the best save of the series. With 1:21 left on the clock, Anze Kopitar gave the Kings the 2-1 lead with an assist coming from Justin Williams and shooting it on the right side of the net.
When the third period came into play, Kings’ Coach Darryl Sutter put rookies Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson together in the line along with Carter and with the lineup change, it gave the Kings a 3-1 at 4:40. The last two goals came with an empty net at 17:53 and 19:12 by Dustin Brown and Tanner Pearson. Quick had a total of 39 saves with Kopitar netting his 4th goal and Doughty scoring his 1st of the series. With this win, the Kings came back from a 0-3 deficit, becoming the 4th team in NHL history to come back from this kind of deficit, winning 4 games in a row joining the 1942 Toronto Leafs, 1975 New York Islanders and the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers. This will be a series to remember. Game 1 of the Second Round will be at the Honda Center where the Anaheim Ducks will be hosting the LA Kings Saturday night @ 5pm PT.
