It only took 45 years, but the Los Angeles Kings have won the Stanley Cup, as the champions of professional hockey. They thumped the New Jersey Devils 6-1 in game 6 of the finals in Los Angeles. This game was never in doubt after a devastating first period for the Devils. A five minute major boarding penalty by Steve Bernier for mashing Rob Scuderi against the glass and giving him a nice cut on his nose, was all the Kings needed to turn a scoreless game into a 3-0 lead. Which of course is insurmountable when you have Jonathan Quick in your goal. Quick was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was well deserved, as the Kings went 16-4 in the playoffs, and Quick had a 1.41 goals against average, along with a .946 save percentage.
Dustin Brown, the captain of the Los Angeles Kings, became only the second American-born captain to ever win the Stanley Cup, coming after the Dallas Stars’ Derian Hatcher back in 1999. Brown is from Ithaca, New York, having grown up a New York Rangers fan. On the other side, the Devils’ captain Zach Parise is also American-born, hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota. This shows the rise in professional hockey of the American player. Both Brown and Parise have said they were inspired by watching Hatcher back in 1999.
Congratulations to the new Stanley Cup Champions, the Los Angeles Kings. As it sounds strange now, with the young nucleus that the Kings have of Quick, Brown, Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty and others, they should be very competitive for many years to come.
