NHL Playoffs 2012: Recounting the Los Angeles Kings' Cinderella Run so Far

The Los Angeles Kings are four wins away from becoming the third team in four seasons to reach the Stanley Cup finals after replacing their head coach at midseason. They are eight wins removed from being the fourth team in as many years to win the championship after starting their regular season in Europe.

Both objectives are more attainable than meets the eye. The eighth-seeded Kings finished a mere two points behind their Western Conference final adversaries from Phoenix in an ultra-competitive, albeit slightly under-the-radar, Pacific Division derby.

And who knows? Maybe if they had ushered in new coach Darryl Sutter one or two games sooner, they would be hosting Sunday night’s third-round opener rather than venturing into Jobing.com Arena.

On the heels of not-so-shocking, back-to-back first-round dismissals, the 2011-12 Kings wasted little time letting their promise perish with the leaves in the thick of autumn. A 6-2-1 run through the first three weeks of October promptly gave way to a 7-10-3 tumble.

At 13-12-4 overall, and with a cumulative 64-60 scoring differential working against his team, general manager Dean Lombardi sought a new voice in his dressing room and supplanted coach Terry Murray with interim stand-in John Stevens.

Stevens, who debuted Dec. 13 against the defending champions in Boston, lasted only through a four-game road trip, going 2-2-0 with a 14-6 scoring aggregate in favor of the opposition.

Sutter’s deal was finalized once the Kings returned home, and the team garnered a point in each of his first eight games at 5-0-3. That set the tone for a 25-13-11 run on his watch, enough to cement L.A.’s third consecutive playoff spot with only one game and two days left in the regular season.

Just as it was for the division champion Coyotes and the San Jose Sharks, who were sandwiched between Phoenix and L.A. with 96 total points, the brittle margin for error offered fruitful motivation for the Kings. And it provided perhaps the best simulation of the postseason, which certainly explains the current status of the Stanley Cup bracket.

Along with the advent of Sutter, it didn’t hurt L.A.’s cause to get back the likes of offseason import Mike Richards and defensemen Willie Mitchell and Alec Martinez, who combined to lose 24 man-games over November and December.

The only key injuries to strike the Kings in the second half of the regular season were to Jarret Stoll and late February acquisition Jeff Carter.

Carter, obtained from Columbus less than a week prior to the trade deadline in exchange for defenseman Jack Johnson, rejoined Richards, his former Philadelphia teammate, and charged up a 6-3-9 scoring log in his first 12 games with Los Angeles. But his ailing ankle ultimately forced him to sit out the last five games of the push for a playoff spot.

Upon returning for the start of the postseason, however, Carter promptly pitched in a pair of assists, while Richards logged three points to take Game 1 from the Presidents' Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks, 4-2. With a 2-2 deadlock at hand in the third period, the two ex-Flyers collaborated to set up Dustin Penner for the go-ahead strike with only 3:14 to spare in regulation.

Bolstered by goaltender Jonathan Quick, the Kings would not so much as trail again in the series until near the halfway mark of Game 4, when the Canucks’ Kevin Bieksa slugged home a season-saving strike. That goal busted a 1-1 tie and decided an eventual 3-1 final, averting a sweep.

Four nights later, though, Los Angeles improved to 3-0 in playoff road games as Stoll struck in sudden death for a 2-1 Game 5 victory, knocking off the reigning Western Conference champions.

Facing another division champion in St. Louis, Quick continued his two-goals-or-less limit, while the Kings continued their road “whoa’s!” They patiently erased a 1-0 deficit for a 3-1 triumph in Game 1, then started Game 2 on a four-goal rampage fueled by multi-point-getters Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Penner and Richards.

The 5-2 final improved L.A. to 5-0 on the road in the postseason—a mark it will vie to defend in Phoenix a full week after completing its sweep of the Blues at Staples Center.

Naturally, the longer their perfection on enemy ponds survives, the tougher it shall get to preserve. The Kings were one of the leading contributors to a head-scratching trend in the conference quarterfinals that saw road teams go a collective 30-18. The home team prevailed only once, in Game 3 in L.A., during the Kings-Canucks series.

With one game still to come between the Rangers and Capitals, home teams are a more explicable 13-7 in the second round. The Coyotes won all three of their conference semifinal tilts with Nashville at Jobing.com Arena, including the clincher last Monday.

With that being said, the Kings may need to do little more than steal one out of three or four tilts in suburban Phoenix and then tighten their assertiveness in their own abode.

Despite a less-than-adverse 8-1 run through the first two rounds, even a 2-0 deficit going back to Los Angeles ought not to instill too much fright to the Kings’ fanbase. Since Sutter’s arrival, their team has consistently thrived while playing under the knowledge that each game makes a significant impact on the continuation of their season.