Game 6.
In San Jose.
Up 3-2.
Sounds like a good final score. “It’s a 3-2 league” says Sutter. Until it’s a 4-2 series.
The Sharks thought they had control of this series, having won two triumphant one goal victories on home ice, lost one game to an otherworldly Jonathan Quick performance and another to some jive hummer of a referee call or two. They thought they controlled the puck, the zones, the play. For a moment they did.
Their moment has passed.
From the 3rd period of game 4 through all three of game 5, the Kings have found their stride. Was it a line change? Penner with Carter-Richards; Brown to the third line. Perhaps. Was it an injection of testosterone? Matt Greene shrugs. Was it Anze Kopitar’s sudden memorial influx of all those times when he single-handedly controlled a forecheck like Alexander swathing over Persia? Joe Thornton, who had a really good period once (says his underwear) thinks so, but he’s too busy listening to TJ Galliardi and Logan Couture playing the Kevin Bieksa to their San Jose.
It’s a lot of things, but all that matters is it happened, and it’s here to stay.
The Kings have advanced thus far for three reasons: Sutter, Carter and most of all, Quick. A 0.5 could be attributed to Voynov, but up until the previous four periods the Kings had won 6 games purely because they know how to win and are built for the playoffs, otherwise known as the opposite of Bruce Boudreau’s Ducks. The Kings had not played to their potential as a team, and still they had given the Sharks all they could handle.
Now that has changed and ladies and gentlemen, Your Los Angeles Kings have gelled once more.
The Sharks will push, we shall shove. They will scratch, we will declaw. They dare press, we pull truth. Encroach and be hurt. Shoot and be stoned. Pinch and feel open wounds salted. Struggle and drown.
Home ice be damned, we are knocking out the Sharks this night.
That’s a sentiment worthy of a prayer.
Our Kings, yeah, the defending Cup Champs, those Kings, who art in San Jose for the last time this season (thank the hockey gods),
Hallowed be thy game tonight.
Thy Kingdom shall come as thy wills do get done,
On their ice, because teaching humility is kind of our thing.
Give us this night as many goals as Jonathan Quick needs, cause he makes the rules ’round here,
And forgive no Sharks their trespasses across that blue line, and just maybe we’ll forgive them for Logan Couture’s face.
Nah.
And lead us past these smug schmuck Sharks, and deliver us to the Conference Finals.
Amen
Don’t just go fucking nuts.
Be a fucking nut.
And let’s win this damn game!
GO KINGS GO!
GO KINGS GO!!
GO KINGS GO!!!
Filed under: L.A. Kings News
