Stanley Cup Finals 2012: Why We Need to See Kings vs. Devils Game 7

Besides the obvious, there are reasons unique to the 2012 championship bout between the Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils that ought to have all nonpartisan hockey advocates begging for a Game 7.

Naturally, the longer a Stanley Cup Final series goes, the more it benefits the NHL and hockey in general.

When has that not held true? In any major North American sport other than football, a rubber game in a title series is as close as one gets to the Super Bowl.

But furthermore, the NBA, the NHL’s wintertime cohabitant and frenemy, is scheduled to commence its own championship series on Tuesday. If the Kings claim the Cup on Monday, it will be that much harder to sustain interest amongst crossover fans as the spotlight turns almost exclusively over to LeBron James, the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Conversely, a little overlap, even if it’s just by one night, will help balance out the national discussion of the two championship series. The extra game will also spawn more hockey-related talking points to feast on even after the Cup is doled out and the victors have a parade in their city.

In addition, when it comes to its perpetual struggle to maintain American interest, the NHL has an unprecedented case of two finalist teams each being captained by a former and likely future U.S. Olympian with Dustin Brown and Zach Parise.

The Kings also have a potential American torch-bearer in goaltender Jonathan Quick. If his team prevails, he and Brown will likely constitute the first all-American combination of a Cup-winning captain and Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

Naturally, they can wrap up that distinction in Game 6, but doing it on Wednesday, in front of a potentially larger television audience after the momentum is ostensibly turned against them, would make it that much more compelling.

At the other end, though hailing from Montreal, the long-time New Jersey stopper Martin Brodeur is one of the most recognizable names and faces in the game. As bystanders continue to wonder if his career is nearly concluded, he is penning what could be a most flavorful feel-good story.

If it wasn’t common knowledge before, everyone is aware by now that the last time a team came back from a 3-0 series deficit in the final round was in 1942. The Devils have a chance to do the same, having taken back-to-back elimination games after the Kings threatened a sweep.

Since 1942, there have been other teams who either came all the way back to win a best-of-seven or at least forced a rubber game. But apart from Toronto’s triumph over Detroit in the World War II era, it has never happened when there were only two teams still standing in the tournament.

That was before games were nationally televised anywhere on the continent. It would be another decade before Hockey Night in Canada hit the small screen.

Today, you have both CBS and NBC reaching even those who still lack basic cable. The only time any best-of-seven sports series had this kind of story brewing before a vast national audience was when baseball’s Boston Red Sox surmounted the 3-0 pothole to eventually vanquish the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series.

The story and all of the side stories generated by that series have had a long, healthy shelf life in the MLB annals. If the Devils can win Game 6 Monday night to bring this series back to Newark for Game 7, the NHL can expect the same thing regardless of who prevails.

Outside of the New Jersey and Los Angeles fanbases, it need not matter who wins on Wednesday. What matters is that they play a Game 7 on Wednesday.

It will either be the first time a Stanley Cup Final has seen someone rebound from the most daunting deficit or the first time the bottom seed in a conference has won the title. It will either be the last hurrah for the 40-year-old Brodeur or the first celebratory summer for the 45-year-old L.A. franchise.

While there is no guarantee, there is a chance an extended series and the resulting interest could motivate the NHL’s players and owners in the upcoming CBA talks. As if the grim events of the previous decade weren’t enough, the more glowing present state of the sport should be too great to risk bobbling as a result of a work stoppage of any length.

Beside the fact that this is a series with so many prominent Americans, a prominent Hall-of-Fame-worthy backstop and a prominent American market, what better way to underscore that the league is heading in the right direction than by a winner-take-all bout for the most famous trophy on the continent?