Goodbye to the Crown

Kings fans haven’t seen streamers reign down from the rafters in almost two years. And they won’t, not for another year at least. After having dropped the first two games of the series at home, and a third game two in San Jose, the Kings faced elimination from a team they’d thoroughly humiliated two seasons ago. Turns out, it was their turn to be on the wrong side of those handshakes.

Technically, the Sharks didn’t score on their first shot. But their first credited shot was a dump in on Jonathan Quick so they essentially scored on their first, when Luke Schenn couldn’t handle the puck and Logan Couture capitalized on the turnover, the shot tipped by Donskoi. Not the way you want to start an elimination game. Getting two penalties further complicated the chances the Kings might have for offense. The first was Schenn (a questionable call, Quick was pushed so hard he fell into the net and dislodged it, Tomas Hertl ended up in the net too yet somehow it was Schenn called for interference.) 15 seconds later Dustin Brown was called for ‘tripping’ Martin Jones. (Ironic, considering the most blatant missed call of the series was last game when Jones tripped Brown.) If that’s tripping I need to review the rule book again. (I will say I’ve never seen the crowd get so riled up at the referees.) The momentum *should* have shifted back to the Kings after spectacularly killing the 5-on-3, yet it didn’t. Sure, Brayden McNabb got a couple of hits on the same Sharks in the same spot in the same shift and that was amazing, but after the second hit the Sharks ended up down the other end of the ice and past Quick. The Kings got their first power play of the evening, yet couldn’t even get a shot off. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as every other game was basically this, but still disappointing.

Going in the second it seemed the Sharks had put the nail in the coffin. 3:58 into the third Quick went down on the initial shot and Matt Nieto got the rebound before any of the Kings could. Before the Kings could mount any kind of comeback (and they kinda tried – Quick actually played the puck well, through to the neutral zone but Vincent Lecavalier couldn’t handle it) Jake Muzzin hooked Patrick Marleau on his breakaway and he got a penalty shot for it. Quick stopped the shot, and then the comeback actually began. Doughty’s shot was the first Kings goal at 7:44; he teed it up, it ricocheted off of Dwight King’s skate and Anze Kopitar’s skate and past Jones. Less than four minutes later Jeff Carter got another one, a gorgeous top shelf goal he wristed past Jones. 5 minutes after that Kris Versteeg tipped in a Kyle Clifford shot and somehow the Kings looked to make another infamous comeback. Of course it wouldn’t be a LA Kings comeback without taking a penalty immediately following a goal, so Trever Lewis obliged. But the Kings were surging and they killed it easily.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a LA Kings comeback at all, when 3:58 into the third Quick should have covered the puck, instead Joonas Donski got it and he shot it past a vulnerable Quick. The air seemed to come out of the Kings. They attempted another comeback, and a quite convincing one, but nothing was getting through to Jones. It was very LA Kings; lots of zone time, lots of setting up but not a whole lot of quality chances. And in an even more LA Kings move, following minutes of great shifts they gave up a really, really stupid goal. It was desperation time. They pulled Quick with over 4 minutes to go, but they just couldn’t get anything going. An empty net goal with 22 seconds to go would be the final nail in the coffin. Then came the handshakes, and that was it for the Kings 2016 season, much earlier than we would have liked. Until October Kings fans.

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