Stanley Cup Final 2014: What Each Team Must Do to Secure Game 2 Victory

One game into the 2014 Stanley Cup Final, both the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings have reasons to be positive.

The Rangers can take solace in the fact that they built an early 2-0 lead and nearly stole home-ice advantage. That's not a terrible start to the series.

Meanwhile, the Kings overcame that two-goal deficit and won, 3-2, in overtime. Los Angeles didn't play its best yet still managed to come away with the victory.

Game 2 is nowhere near a must-win situation, but it will swing momentum one way or the other. By pushing the Final to 1-1, New York will have reset the series, whereas a 2-0 lead for the Kings would be extremely hard to come back from for the Rangers.

Looking ahead to Saturday's matchup, these will be the biggest keys to victory for each team.

New York Rangers

Help Henrik Lundqvist More

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

Henrik Lundqvist can't do it all on his own. The three-time All-Star made 40 saves, but beyond that blitzkrieg in the first period, the Rangers did little offensively to help their netminder.

New York could only muster 27 shots during regulation and overtime, compared to 43 for the Kings. While volume doesn't always equal success, that kind of difference in shot total is rarely a good sign.

New York's shot totals for each period steadily declined throughout the game. In the first, it tested Jonathan Quick 13 times. That number dropped to nine in the second period and then three in the third period.

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images

The Rangers had the Kings right where they wanted them, and they collectively took their foot off the gas.

Lundqvist can prevent goals, but he can't score them. He did his best in Game 1 to secure a victory. Unfortunately for the Rangers, his attack gave him little support, especially after the first period.

Bleacher Report's Jonathan Willis wrote that New York's offensive stagnation was too much to overcome:

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The Rangers’ inability to put pucks on net hurt them, too. The Kings outshot the Rangers 43 to 27 but had their shots missed or blocked only 21 times to New York’s 36. New York showed that it could compete with the Kings possession-wise in the contest, but that big possession advantage doesn’t matter if the team can’t get shots through to net, something it struggled with in the opening game of this series.

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After the game, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault praised his goaltender and highlighted him as the biggest reason New York pushed the game into OT, per Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun Times:

Vigneault also criticized the overall effort of his team, per Pro Hockey Talk's Joe Yerdon:

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One thing that's real evident to me, and it should be to our whole group, is we're not going to beat this team if we do not all bring our 'A' game. It is that strong of an opponent that we're playing against. We had (Henrik Lundqvist) that brought his 'A' game last night. We had a couple guys. I don't want to name who I think brought their 'A' game. But our 'B' game won't do it. We're not going to win if we bring our 'B' game to the table.

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Lundqvist did his best for the Rangers. Now his forwards need to do the same.

Los Angeles Kings

Make the Most of This Time Off

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The Kings have Thursday and Friday to unwind and recover somewhat from what's been a whirlwind postseason. Playing three straight seven-game series was bound to have a deleterious effect on Los Angeles' players sooner or later.

It happened in the first period of Game 1, as the Kings fell behind 2-0 and took about 16 minutes to finally find their footing.

Of course, everything worked out in the end, so L.A. dodged a major bullet.

If it happens again, the Kings might not be so lucky. The Rangers had them on the ropes but couldn't land the knockout blow. What are the chances that lightning strikes twice?

On the other hand, perhaps that sluggish first period was exactly what the Kings players needed to break through whatever fatigue they were feeling:

In the Western Conference Final, defenseman Drew Doughty denied that any sort of weariness would adversely impact his team's performance, per Greg Beacham of The Associated Press:

The concern for the Kings isn't that they'll completely sleepwalk through a Stanley Cup Final game because they're so tired. The real problem could be that they start slowly out of the gates, and the Rangers don't let them off the hook again.

Man for man, Los Angeles is the better team, and it demonstrated that in the second and third periods of Game 1. The Rangers have a strong defense and speed in abundance, but they have no counter for the Kings' stable of talented forwards.

New York is a skilled team, though, so Los Angeles can't afford to have the kind of mental breakdown that it had on Wednesday night.