The La Kings defeated the San Jose Sharks in Game 1 on their Western Conference Semifinals series on Tuesday with the sort of defensive performance that improved them win the Stanley Cup last season.
The team's success begins and ends with the play of superstar goaltender Jonathan Quick, who is playing his best hockey for the year after a poor regular season. The reigning Conn Smythe Trophy winner was the first star of Tuesday's gameplay, stopping all 35 in the shots he faced to help earn his second shutout with the playoffs.
When the Sharks did start to create more offensive-zone pressure in the third period and fired 16 shots at Effective, the Kings' goalie banded tall and made many of the important saves to stop his team's lead with slipping away.
With a further victory under his belt, Quick currently is 5-1-1 in the playoffs by having a 1. 36 GAA and a. 953 save percentage, which can be better than his numbers from last year's champion run.
There is no improved playoff goaltender than Quick immediately, and with teams unable to understand a way to overcom him consistently, Los Angeles provides a very real chance to become the first team ever since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings to repeat as Stanley Cup champions.
Quick is not really a "hot goaltender, " he's also one that's playing with a plethora of confidence as a ex - champion. When he's on top of his game, the Nobleman are nearly unbeatable, and his impressive play in net gives their teammates more freedom to take the chances offensively, because he will bail them out most of the time if defensive breakdowns show up.
One of those players is No. 1 defenseman Drew Doughty, who has a reputation to be a big-game player. The 23-year-old superstar has tallied three points in seven games, but his play with the defensive zone has ended up fantastic. He ranks to begin with among all Kings blueliners in hits (19), second with blocked shots (12) along with third in short-handed period on ice per gameplay (2: 39).
Doughty was relating to the ice for 22 with Sharks captain Joe Thornton's 31 shifts in Game 1, plus the Kings' star's quality a good defense and physical play concluded in the San Jose centre failing to tally a single point after dominating the Vancouver Canucks with the first round.
In the absence of veteran defensemen Willie Mitchell along with Matt Greene (both tend to be battling injuries), Slava Voynov and rookie Jake Muzzin have presented the Kings the needed sum of blue-line depth to closed the deepest teams in the West. Despite their inexperience in the playoffs, these two defensemen show a huge amount of poise along with the puck and make your smart plays at both ends for the ice.
Voynov was a Kings' best skater upon Tuesday, with a objective, an assist, two blocked shots together with a team-leading 23: 54 from ice time. He now has three game-winning goals inside the playoffs.
Another reason to your Kings' recent success is their phenomenal penalty hurting. Los Angeles ranks fourth among playoff teams with a 88. 2-percent success rate over the penalty kill, and the team haven't allowed a power-play goal since Game one of the first round.
From a particular offensive standpoint, the Kings haven't scored a whole lot of goals, but they are finishing games strongly. Five of their total 14 goals have been scored in the third period or overtime, plus the blue line is getting the team some much-needed reviewing with 14 points with seven games.
Head coach Darryl Sutter would probably want his team to find the back of the web more consistently, but this team is quite comfortable in close mmorpgs (4-1-1 in games decided by one goal inside playoffs), especially when Quick is playing at an elite level.
When the Kings maintain like they did in Game 1 about the Sharks and Quick is normally outstanding, this team is remarkably tough to defeat four times in a very seven-game series.
No other team in the league has the education represent a talented and deeply blue line, a group of forwards with a dependable two-way game, a goaltender capable of dominating a string by himself and a huge amount of Stanley Cup-winning experience.
Being team that is getting timely scoring, great defensive play in all of the three zones and spectacular goaltending using a nightly basis, the Kings are needs to reach the level they did during last year's Stanley Container run with five immediately wins.
This is a team with which has very few weaknesses and is now getting hot within the right time of the season with a growing a higher level confidence.
Nicholas Goss will be an NHL Lead Writer with Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter. He was a credentialed reporter for the 2011 Stanley Cup Very last and 2012 NHL playoffs within Boston.
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