Some pundits around the hockey world, myself included, have said that the Los Angeles Kings got to where they are in the 2014 Stanley Cup final despite star goaltender Jonathan Quick, not because of him. After all, he’s not exactly put up numbers akin to his world-beating, Conn Smythe performance of 2012, though few can blame him considering his play that spring two years ago was legend-making.
However, that legend has been largely absent this spring, and some semblance of that goalie would have been welcome. Since a brilliant run to finish off the Sharks and two straight wins to open the Kings’ second round series against the Ducks, a time period which includes a full month of playoff hockey and in which the games have gotten progressively more difficult and important, Quick has seen his save percentage continually drop (from .924 to a .906 entering last night’s game).
To make matters worse, Quick has been wildly inconsistent. In the Sharks series, he allowed 19 goals in the first four games, but only two in the final three. Against the Ducks, he allowed 10 goals in three straight losses. In the Western Conference final, he wasn’t able to string together two straight games of less than three goals, and has allowed three or more in five of his last seven games overall.
Luckily for L.A.’s Stanley Cup hopes, those performances haven’t been much of a factor, as they entered last night’s game with a 2-0 series lead. The Kings roster in front of Quick is, as we all know, incredibly deep, talented, and structured. Coach Daryl Sutter has his team playing such an airtight, punishing game on both sides of the puck that Quick hasn’t had to steal many, if any, games for his team since the end of the first round.
But, as we all know and advanced statistics are beginning to reinforce with hard data, trends are made to be broken, and last night’s game was the opposite of everything we’ve seen so far in this Stanley Cup final.
I’ve buried the lede long enough, so let’s get to the point: Quick was simply stellar last night in game three, turning aside all 32 shots the New York Rangers threw at him, often in spectacular fashion, on the way to a 3-0 shutout victory. Here’s just one of the many highlight-reel stops by Quick:
The shutout was only Quick’s second of the post-season, his first coming in round one against the Sharks, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for the 28-year-old American, who dreamed of playing in Madison Square Garden as a boy.
It’s not been often that the Kings have needed Quick to be their best player this post-season, but he certainly needed to be last night. For the second half of the game, the Rangers were absolutely on fire, peppering the Los Angeles cage with shots from every angle. New York finished the game with a 64.1% Corsi for. All told, the Rangers had 59 shot attempts (including shots on goal, missed shots, and blocked shots, for those unfamiliar with Corsi), compared to just 33 for the Kings. Yet not one found the back of the net behind Quick.
The Los Angeles forwards however, had much better luck. Sniper Jeff Carter scored with under a second to go in a hard-contested first period to give the Kings the lead heading into the first intermission. Defenseman Jake Muzzin doubled up the lead on a power play early in the second period, scoring his 6th of the post-season to eclipse his regular season total. Mike Richards would add another later in the second to increase the lead to three, though the goal proved largely inconsequential by the end of the night.
If ever there was a game for Quick’s Rangers counterpart Henrik Lundqvist to potentially steal, it was last night. The team in front of him was outstanding, getting chance after chance and playing with a heightened intensity and drive that we’ve yet to see from them in this Stanley Cup final.Yet Lundqvist struggled, allowing three goals on the first 13 shots he faced, and stopping only 12 of 15 overall.
It was a relatively light workload for the perennial all-star and former Vezina trophy winner, but he struggled playing in the spot light of the most important game in his NHL career. Before the series began, many claimed that Lundqvist was going to have to steal a few games, or even the entire series, if the Rangers were to have any chance.
As it turned out, it was Lundqvist who let his team down behind one of the best performances we’ve seen out of the players in front of him this post-season. Meanwhile Quick was down on the other end of the ice, proving why he’s considered among the elite netminders in the world. A tale of two goalies, that ultimately turned in Quick’s favor.
It’s been an interesting Stanley Cup final so far. In games one and two, the Rangers came out with hot starts and built leads, but the Kings were able to fight back from multi-goal deficits multiple times to win both games in OT. In fact, the Kings hadn’t lead for a single second of this series until Carter’s goal. However, that brilliant comeback ability and strong performances over the back-half of those games are what made the difference.
In game three, it was New York’s turn to play the comeback kids. However, what sets game three apart is the simple fact that Lundqvist wasn’t able to hold those leads in the first two games, while last night Quick was.
What that all portends for a crucial, and possibly Cup-clinching, game four on Wednesday night in New York remains to be seen. The Rangers now know that they can keep up with the superior Kings, that they can skate with the best in the world and that, realistically, this series could very well be in their favor if not for two shots that went against them in the first two overtimes.
But staring down a 3-0 series disadvantage, and with a reverse sweep being their only course of action, the prospects of the Rangers actually doing so have become slimmer than ever. Especially if Quick can prove that consistency means nothing at all by playing game four as he has the ability to do: as the best goalie on the planet. Lundqvist may yet have something to say about that, and will certainly have to if the Rangers are to have any hope.
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