Stanley Cup Finals 2012: Williams and Anze Kopitar Connect on Game 1 Winner

Los Angeles Kings fans can only hope relatively recent history does not repeat itself after Anze Kopitar’s breakaway goal gave their team a 2-1 overtime victory in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Since the end of the first lockout of the Gary Bettman era in 1995, two other championship series openers were decided in overtime. Jason Woolley was the hero for the Buffalo Sabres to start their bout with the Dallas Stars in 1999, while Ron Francis finalized an early victory for the Carolina Hurricanes against Detroit in 2002.

In both cases, the 1-0 series lead failed to morph into a victory, with Buffalo ultimately losing in six games, the Hurricanes in five. But the Kings are entitled to a little jubilation and conviction after clinching their NHL-record ninth road win in as many tries this spring.

Sequentially speaking, Wednesday night was not much different from about half of L.A.’s dozen wins over the first three rounds of the playoffs.

The Kings drew first blood via Colin Fraser at 9:56 of the first period and successfully harbored the resultant 1-0 lead until Anton Volchenkov’s point blast banked off rookie blueliner Slava Voynov and past Jonathan Quick late in the middle frame.

But from there, Quick was at least superficially composed as he engaged his seasoned counterpart, Martin Brodeur, in another epic staring contest. Not unlike his previous bout eight nights prior with Phoenix’s Mike Smith, the dueling netminders nurtured the tie score through the balance of the third period.

And yet again, after repelling nine straight New Jersey shots, Quick prevailed in the bonus stanza. And the Kings converted the winning play with tangible credit going to three skaters performing characteristic maneuvers.

Two-way defenseman Drew Doughty, the top point-getter among blueliners, cleared the zone on an upward feed to Justin Williams. Williams, who entered the night as L.A.’s third-leading point-getter behind Kopitar and Dustin Brown, shipped out a backhander to an unsupervised Kopitar in the center lane of neutral ice.

Cutting straight ahead, Kopitar convinced Brodeur to sprawl, laced the puck to the netminder’s right and spooned home a close-range wrist shot at 8:13 of the overtime frame.

With that, he is now tied with Brown for the team lead with seven strikes in the postseason, while Williams, a one-time Stanley Cup winner with Carolina in 2006, now has a team-high 10 helpers through 15 playoff games.

Kopitar entered the series having had only one pointless outing in each of the first three rounds and both he and Williams have yet to go more than two consecutive games without any production.