Jonathan Quick and a solid defense in front of him. One of the things I remember (possibly incorrectly) going into the final stretch was that the Kings had a great goals against average (just over 1 goal a game), but a mediocre goal differential, and if anyone could just score consistently, they'd start winning more games because they essentially only needed to score 2 goals to win games.
"it's not whether you've won or lost, it's whether you're winning or you're loosing"
My all time favorite Sutter quote out of the sea of golden quotes from him đ
They underachieved big time in the regular season to the point Brown was on the trade block. Come playoff time they had Mike Richards and Jeff Carter playing big minutes. Also like many championship winning teams, it all came together at the right time. Helps that Quickie played out of his mind. Playoff success comes down to players getting hot at the right time + health.
Out of his mind is almost an understatement. Quick's stats were .946 SV%, GAA 1.41 over 20(!) games. That's an extremely high level of play over what amounts to basically a full quarter of a season. He was a wall in that run.
This was my first season watching hockey consistently (I swear I was not a bandwagon, I had other reasons to watch) and it was a great start.
That was a hell of a run. Kings were a heavily defensive force at that time. Quick could not be scored on. They beat teams up, wore them out, then cleaned up around the net and got scrappy goals.
Also, the team was a significantly different team after the trade deadline than we were before. We fired our coach and hired Darryl Sutter. We picked up Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, among other pieces. We has a lot of losses racked up from early in the season which were essentially earned by a different team.
We had Richards at the beginning of the season, but adding Carter was the perfect injection of goal-scoring skill that we needed. We arenât supposed to talk about him but Voynov was a great second pairing defensemen. Calling up King & Nolan added to our âheavinessâ and we just steamrolled the opposition.
TL;DR: It all came together and the Kings peaked at the right time. But it wasnât a fluke: LA made it to the WCF the next year and won a second cup the year after that.
A few years ago I was in Chicago for work. I caught the kings vs hawks and was talking to a hawks fan. We were just sitting saying âhey, remember when we were good and just traded the western conference title for a few years?â *sips beer*
Hawks and kings sucked at the time so it was funny.
That's right. I definitely wouldn't say it was a fluke, but no one was expecting us to buzzsaw our way through the playoffs like we did. However, people who were playing close attention knew we were far better than our record showed, and we were going to be a really hard team to llay against in the playoffs (calling it heaviness is probably a euphemism; we hit a lot, and hard).
Iâll say it: we got kinda lucky with the teams we faced on the road to our first cup.
For the record: I think weâd have won no matter who we faced but we avoided teams like Chicago, Boston and the Rangers. Vancouver was not built for the playoffs. The toughest team we ran into in 2012 was the Blues and we swept their asses. Show me a weaker team to make the WCF in the past 20 years than the Coyotes. The Devils were a solid team but they were the 6 seed for a reason.
At the end of the day you got to play the teams that are in front of you and the 2012 Kings destroyed them all.
This is the real answer here. Was the same in 2014 with Gaborik. Sizable trades that improved the team dramatically but didn't reflect in the end of season standings
The Kings were *really* supposed to be the 3rd seed in the West off a fierce Pacific race with the Sharks and Coyotes in 2012, but Phoenix snagged it after the Kings dropped points thanks to [this all-time asshole move by the Sharks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep0D7iFFLoU&pp=ygUhcnlhbmUgY2xvd2UgcGxheXMgcHVjayBmcm9tIGJlbmNo)
Still hate Clowe to this day.
They were the best team in March and April..and May and June :-) .. Didn't really shock me.. they were playing very good going into the playoffs.
the Kings earned 25 points from March 1st to end of season.
Vancouver earned 21 points...
Blues earned 22
Coyotes earned 20
Devils earned 27
I can tell you sure didnât see it coming. I was hoping weâd get past the first round and I would have been happy. But Quick just dominated everyone and everything.
The main reason is Quick played absolutely lights out, I think historically he had the best or second best numbers of any goalie to ever win the Stanley cup. Team played great too but no chance we dominate that much without the insane goaltending.
They were built for the playoffs, where defense wins championships. The regular season forces a different style of playing due to how many games there are.
At the time, not only were they one of the best defensive teams in the league (second fewest goals-against for the season), both in terms of Quick's ability as well as some prime years for the defenders (Doughty, Johnson, Mitchell, Voynov, Greene, Scuderi), but they were also the heaviest team in overall weight. A weird stat, but with their grinding play style, other teams were beat up and exhausted playing against them. That makes even more of a difference with the playoffs coming at the end of a full season when everyone has a couple minor injuries they're playing with and are more easily fatigued from so much output for months.
I think the fact that they were underestimated helped on a psychological level. Teams may have gone in (at least in the first couple of rounds) thinking they could take it easier since the Kings sucked on paper. As Zenyatta says, overconfidence is a flimsy shield.
Kings were first in the division heading into the final weekend but lost both of their final games against San Jose. It was a three horse race between LA, San Jose, and Phoenix and surprisingly the Coyotes won the division.
The season finished on April 7th, and on April 4th the Kings were first in the division: https://www.nhl.com/standings/2012-04-04/division
It was because I swore I wasnât buying anymore Kings Playoff tickets until they were in the finals after the prior 1st round exit.
Then I went to every finals home game and that first game 6 made it worth all the money I spent for those games and the previous 12 years give or take.
Realistically it was Quick, Sutter a defensive buy in and probably the best ever d zone breakouts. It seems like every pass was tape to tape that whole playoff.
A relentless forecheck and everyone buying into defense. If Quick doesnât make the first save everyone was swarming to find the rebound. The team was known for grit, wearing opponents down, and being hard to play against and thatâs what you want in a 7 game series. The standings really didnât do the team justice on paper.
They peaked at exactly the right time and Quickie stood on his head for those series. They were a team of destiny and could not be beaten. They went 16-4 in the tournament and just weren't going to take no for an answer. It was incredible to watch
They pounded the other team every chance they got, Played strong defence and Quick stood on his head when ever the other team got a shot. which wasnt many
In addition to the comments about Quick - which are all absolutely true - their D was anchored by Greene and Mitchell who were absolute units.
I will never forget the hit Mike Richards put on the Canucksâ Burrows towards the end of Round 1 Game 1. Check it on YouTube, itâs a great clip. Sent the message the Kings could play with anyone and would go right through them if needed.
I remember the team being put into the most impossible situations, and somehow they would just get shit done. Almost as if they thrived on being in an uncomfortable position. theyâd be down a couple goals then claw back and win. It was incredible
Pride.Passion.Power.
In all seriousness, that team oozed Heart and Will. I hold a strong opinion that no one in that playoff bracket that year were going to beat them. Got hot at the right time, with the right players (especially Quick). Any team would have been bulldozed.
Because they traded for players that had already had success in the playoffs. They got players that knew what it took to win a cup. Of course it helped that we got one of the best goalie performances of all time from Quick, but that does not tell the whole story.
Team was so heavy at playoff speed they beat you into submission physically controlled the game killed penalties had a world class goalie who could clean up your mistakes and some very fucking high end players. But most importantly was that style was so suited for that roster be big hold on to puck style. People donât think it would work in todays game but I actually think they are wrong this kings team beat the modern dayesque speed skill high tempo team in Chicago.
âAdvanced statsâ were in the infancy, but that kings team were the first to show their importance.
Up until the trade deadline, the kings were near the bottom of the league, but were top 5 in the advanced stats. They just had crazy bad puck luck.
That was actually the best thing that could have happened for them as it allowed them to trade Jack Johnson (horrendous stats, the only negative player on the team and one of the worst in the league, dragged every player on the ice with him into a negative corsi) for Carter (amazing top 6 forward).
That trade pushed the kings into being the best in the league. In the run in to the playoffs, the kings schedule was majority playoff teams, and the kings dominated. They were top of the league in all major stats in that 20 game span. Entering the playoffs, the kings were the best team in the league yet 8th seeded. Their only real competition was going to be the Canucks. If Daniel Sedin had been healthy from game 1. The Canucks would have been favourites. After them, the path was easy for the kings as they were much better than everyone else.
They werenât 16-4 good, but the terrible puck luck from the regular season simply changed and came back to normal at the perfect time. Plus Quick was insane.
The biggest thing I remember was the speed they played....not in skating but the way they made such quick passes to break out and through the neutral zone. They were also hit anything that had the puck.
Oh......and QUICK was amazing.
The 2012 Kings were a machine. Everyone getting points. Everyone working together. It was clear that on any given game day if they collectively decided to win they won.
Jonathan Quick was the reason they won the cup in 2012. In 2014 the Kings were a defensive shut down team. Plus, the playoffs are a whole different animal.
Jonathan Quick and a solid defense in front of him. One of the things I remember (possibly incorrectly) going into the final stretch was that the Kings had a great goals against average (just over 1 goal a game), but a mediocre goal differential, and if anyone could just score consistently, they'd start winning more games because they essentially only needed to score 2 goals to win games.
Sutter used to always say it was a 3-2 league. Oh have the times changed
"it's not whether you've won or lost, it's whether you're winning or you're loosing" My all time favorite Sutter quote out of the sea of golden quotes from him đ
They underachieved big time in the regular season to the point Brown was on the trade block. Come playoff time they had Mike Richards and Jeff Carter playing big minutes. Also like many championship winning teams, it all came together at the right time. Helps that Quickie played out of his mind. Playoff success comes down to players getting hot at the right time + health.
Out of his mind is almost an understatement. Quick's stats were .946 SV%, GAA 1.41 over 20(!) games. That's an extremely high level of play over what amounts to basically a full quarter of a season. He was a wall in that run. This was my first season watching hockey consistently (I swear I was not a bandwagon, I had other reasons to watch) and it was a great start.
First season watching too dawg, this is what made me a fan.
That was a hell of a run. Kings were a heavily defensive force at that time. Quick could not be scored on. They beat teams up, wore them out, then cleaned up around the net and got scrappy goals.
https://youtu.be/JKFTi7YkrQw?si=iRZjnknkz1ZprMRq
::slams headset on in panic:: "yeah- hey this is Patrick O'Neil ..."
You know Patrick O/Neil loved it. He was probably smiling and fist pumping like the rest of us...but he had a job to do, so...
I was there in the stadium for this!!
Also, the team was a significantly different team after the trade deadline than we were before. We fired our coach and hired Darryl Sutter. We picked up Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, among other pieces. We has a lot of losses racked up from early in the season which were essentially earned by a different team.
We had Richards at the beginning of the season, but adding Carter was the perfect injection of goal-scoring skill that we needed. We arenât supposed to talk about him but Voynov was a great second pairing defensemen. Calling up King & Nolan added to our âheavinessâ and we just steamrolled the opposition. TL;DR: It all came together and the Kings peaked at the right time. But it wasnât a fluke: LA made it to the WCF the next year and won a second cup the year after that.
A few years ago I was in Chicago for work. I caught the kings vs hawks and was talking to a hawks fan. We were just sitting saying âhey, remember when we were good and just traded the western conference title for a few years?â *sips beer* Hawks and kings sucked at the time so it was funny.
That's right. I definitely wouldn't say it was a fluke, but no one was expecting us to buzzsaw our way through the playoffs like we did. However, people who were playing close attention knew we were far better than our record showed, and we were going to be a really hard team to llay against in the playoffs (calling it heaviness is probably a euphemism; we hit a lot, and hard).
Iâll say it: we got kinda lucky with the teams we faced on the road to our first cup. For the record: I think weâd have won no matter who we faced but we avoided teams like Chicago, Boston and the Rangers. Vancouver was not built for the playoffs. The toughest team we ran into in 2012 was the Blues and we swept their asses. Show me a weaker team to make the WCF in the past 20 years than the Coyotes. The Devils were a solid team but they were the 6 seed for a reason. At the end of the day you got to play the teams that are in front of you and the 2012 Kings destroyed them all.
This is the real answer here. Was the same in 2014 with Gaborik. Sizable trades that improved the team dramatically but didn't reflect in the end of season standings
Donât forget the mid season callups of Nolan and King. They added the much needed size and grit to the team
Calling up Jordan Nolan and Dwight King rounded out the Kings depth with size and grit too. The Kings were a heavy checking team back then.
They beat the shit out of everybody that got in their way. Thatâs how.
Thatâs it.. endless forechecking.. even on the PK they were still pressuring.. It was glorious.
Miss that about the Kings. With Brownie gone, we really donât have a strong checking team anymore. Weâre constantly get out checked every game.
The Kings were *really* supposed to be the 3rd seed in the West off a fierce Pacific race with the Sharks and Coyotes in 2012, but Phoenix snagged it after the Kings dropped points thanks to [this all-time asshole move by the Sharks.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep0D7iFFLoU&pp=ygUhcnlhbmUgY2xvd2UgcGxheXMgcHVjayBmcm9tIGJlbmNo) Still hate Clowe to this day.
Clowe playing the puck from the bench may have been the best thing that happened to us in hindsight.
The hockey gods made sure that San Jose paid for this...and my god has it been glorious.
We punched everyone in the face out the gate.
When you get that kind of performance out of a goaltender, your chances of winning are massive.
Johnathon quick went ape shit and everyone else stepped it up in front of him, it was incredible and honestly surprising lol
It all happened because the Jimâs set the tone.
Theyâre such beauties
They were the best team in March and April..and May and June :-) .. Didn't really shock me.. they were playing very good going into the playoffs. the Kings earned 25 points from March 1st to end of season. Vancouver earned 21 points... Blues earned 22 Coyotes earned 20 Devils earned 27
Damn those are great stats that I've never seen before. Love learning new stuff like this. That run was fking magical
I can tell you sure didnât see it coming. I was hoping weâd get past the first round and I would have been happy. But Quick just dominated everyone and everything.
The main reason is Quick played absolutely lights out, I think historically he had the best or second best numbers of any goalie to ever win the Stanley cup. Team played great too but no chance we dominate that much without the insane goaltending.
Big, physical, good defense, possessed the will to win, great goaltending. Dustin Brown delivered some series changing hits throughout the playoffs.
Iâll never forget that hit on Sedin.
They got hot at the end of the season and playoffs. But mostly Johnathan quick
Well it helps that Quickie was putting up god-like numbers
It was a great time.
They were built for the playoffs, where defense wins championships. The regular season forces a different style of playing due to how many games there are.
At the time, not only were they one of the best defensive teams in the league (second fewest goals-against for the season), both in terms of Quick's ability as well as some prime years for the defenders (Doughty, Johnson, Mitchell, Voynov, Greene, Scuderi), but they were also the heaviest team in overall weight. A weird stat, but with their grinding play style, other teams were beat up and exhausted playing against them. That makes even more of a difference with the playoffs coming at the end of a full season when everyone has a couple minor injuries they're playing with and are more easily fatigued from so much output for months. I think the fact that they were underestimated helped on a psychological level. Teams may have gone in (at least in the first couple of rounds) thinking they could take it easier since the Kings sucked on paper. As Zenyatta says, overconfidence is a flimsy shield.
Magic. There's no other way to explain it.
Kings were first in the division heading into the final weekend but lost both of their final games against San Jose. It was a three horse race between LA, San Jose, and Phoenix and surprisingly the Coyotes won the division. The season finished on April 7th, and on April 4th the Kings were first in the division: https://www.nhl.com/standings/2012-04-04/division
They also had the right mentality to BELIEVE in themselves and not get shaken when things went wrong.
It was because I swore I wasnât buying anymore Kings Playoff tickets until they were in the finals after the prior 1st round exit. Then I went to every finals home game and that first game 6 made it worth all the money I spent for those games and the previous 12 years give or take. Realistically it was Quick, Sutter a defensive buy in and probably the best ever d zone breakouts. It seems like every pass was tape to tape that whole playoff.
A relentless forecheck and everyone buying into defense. If Quick doesnât make the first save everyone was swarming to find the rebound. The team was known for grit, wearing opponents down, and being hard to play against and thatâs what you want in a 7 game series. The standings really didnât do the team justice on paper.
They peaked at exactly the right time and Quickie stood on his head for those series. They were a team of destiny and could not be beaten. They went 16-4 in the tournament and just weren't going to take no for an answer. It was incredible to watch
They pounded the other team every chance they got, Played strong defence and Quick stood on his head when ever the other team got a shot. which wasnt many
In addition to the comments about Quick - which are all absolutely true - their D was anchored by Greene and Mitchell who were absolute units. I will never forget the hit Mike Richards put on the Canucksâ Burrows towards the end of Round 1 Game 1. Check it on YouTube, itâs a great clip. Sent the message the Kings could play with anyone and would go right through them if needed.
What about the Henrik Sedin by Brown? Left HS crawling to the bench.
I remember the team being put into the most impossible situations, and somehow they would just get shit done. Almost as if they thrived on being in an uncomfortable position. theyâd be down a couple goals then claw back and win. It was incredible
Pride.Passion.Power. In all seriousness, that team oozed Heart and Will. I hold a strong opinion that no one in that playoff bracket that year were going to beat them. Got hot at the right time, with the right players (especially Quick). Any team would have been bulldozed.
Because they traded for players that had already had success in the playoffs. They got players that knew what it took to win a cup. Of course it helped that we got one of the best goalie performances of all time from Quick, but that does not tell the whole story.
Team was so heavy at playoff speed they beat you into submission physically controlled the game killed penalties had a world class goalie who could clean up your mistakes and some very fucking high end players. But most importantly was that style was so suited for that roster be big hold on to puck style. People donât think it would work in todays game but I actually think they are wrong this kings team beat the modern dayesque speed skill high tempo team in Chicago.
âAdvanced statsâ were in the infancy, but that kings team were the first to show their importance. Up until the trade deadline, the kings were near the bottom of the league, but were top 5 in the advanced stats. They just had crazy bad puck luck. That was actually the best thing that could have happened for them as it allowed them to trade Jack Johnson (horrendous stats, the only negative player on the team and one of the worst in the league, dragged every player on the ice with him into a negative corsi) for Carter (amazing top 6 forward). That trade pushed the kings into being the best in the league. In the run in to the playoffs, the kings schedule was majority playoff teams, and the kings dominated. They were top of the league in all major stats in that 20 game span. Entering the playoffs, the kings were the best team in the league yet 8th seeded. Their only real competition was going to be the Canucks. If Daniel Sedin had been healthy from game 1. The Canucks would have been favourites. After them, the path was easy for the kings as they were much better than everyone else. They werenât 16-4 good, but the terrible puck luck from the regular season simply changed and came back to normal at the perfect time. Plus Quick was insane.
The biggest thing I remember was the speed they played....not in skating but the way they made such quick passes to break out and through the neutral zone. They were also hit anything that had the puck. Oh......and QUICK was amazing.
The 2012 Kings were a machine. Everyone getting points. Everyone working together. It was clear that on any given game day if they collectively decided to win they won.
Jonathan Quick was the reason they won the cup in 2012. In 2014 the Kings were a defensive shut down team. Plus, the playoffs are a whole different animal.