Jonathan Quick looked like he hadn't slept since Friday night. Jeff Carter, Drew Doughty and Trevor Lewis still had their beards. Coach Darryl Sutter's face was slightly drained, and he could only joke when asked about how much the Los Angeles Kings love playing together. Monday would have been Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Kings and New York Rangers, but instead the city celebrated the Kings' second Cup title in three seasons with a parade and rally. The longest run in playoff history (26 games) ended Friday in Game 5 with the longest game in Kings history, a 3-2 win on Alec Martinez's goal with 14:43 into the second overtime. More than 300,000 fans lined the streets surrounding Staples Center on a bright, mild day downtown, two years to the day of the parade to celebrate the 2012 Cup. This time there was a sense that something truly big is growing here. The Kings have the foundation for a modern-day dynasty, with most of their team intact for the future and their faces and blue-collar ethic now forever engrained in the local sports landscape.
"They don't love it that much because they
could have been playing tonight," Sutter responded.
"It was an emotional, exhausting ride,"
Conn Smythe Trophy winner Justin
Williams said. "For us to come out on top after you poured
everything that you had into it, and it was good enough, words can't
describe it."
"We're starting to become a hockey town,"
captain Dustin
Brown said to the crowd before The Briggs' song "This Is
L.A." blared throughout L.A. Live and confetti came raining
down.
Luc
Robitaille, president of business operations and the public face
of the team, said he feels the Kings have further strengthened their
bond with the city.
"The parade was very special last time, and I
think today was even more special," Robitaille said. "It
seemed bigger. When we turned that last corner, it was unbelievable.
It was overwhelming. It's pretty special and it's pretty special for
those players. A lot of guys come from back East, and they don't know
how big they are in this town because L.A. is such a big city. You
get into a thing like that and you see that many people, it's pretty
amazing."
At the rally inside Staples Center following the
parade, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, "We have the best
sunshine in the world, but we own the ice too."
The biggest cheers were for Sutter and general
manager Dean Lombardi, who began laying the groundwork for the Cup
runs when he arrived in Los Angeles in 2006. The Kings took the path
of most resistance each Cup-winning season. They barely made the
playoffs in 2012, qualifying as the No. 8 seed in the Western
Conference, and in 2014 became the first team in NHL history to win
three Game 7s, all on the road, to get to the Stanley Cup Final. Los
Angeles also became the fourth team in NHL history to erase a 3-0
series deficit and win, in the Western Conference First Round against
the San Jose Sharks
this spring.
Lombardi tried not to get emotional during his
speech. "This franchise has now evolved to a different level,"
he said. "I feel like the luckiest man in the world."
Lombardi has a few roster decisions to make this
summer. Left wing Marian
Gaborik, who finished the final year of a contract that paid him
$7.5 million this season, can become an unrestricted free agent July
1, as can defensemen Willie
Mitchell and Matt
Greene. Gaborik had 22 points, including a League-leading 14
goals, in the playoffs. Left wing Dwight
King can become a restricted free agent. But the bulk of the team
will return.
"We're happy with what we've done, but do we
feel we have a lot more, and the potential to be a great team for
years to come?" Williams said. "Yeah."
Sutter told his players that the path they took in
2012, taking a 3-0 lead in every series, probably won't happen
again. He allowed that this season's difficult road was special, but
said winning is what he expected when Lombardi called him late in
2011 to offer him the coaching job.
"The team was in 12th place," Sutter
said. "I was in the middle of winter, feeding 800 head of
cattle, and my family was living four hours away, and I was being
paid to do that. You don't say no because somebody offered you a job.
I'm not in that position. I was in a position of whether I wanted to
win or not, and whether I thought we could. It's not that hard to
figure out."
In 2012, the Kings had five days between winning
the Cup and the parade. There were two days this time, so players had
not done as much touring with the Cup. Lewis tweeted a photo of the
Cup at the beach, and more celebratory adventures should follow in
the South Bay community where a lot of Kings live. They will take the
Cup to Dodger Stadium on Tuesday for a pregame ceremony before the
Los Angeles Dodgers host the Colorado Rockies.
By then, the Kings might be coming out of their
celebratory haze.
"Party a bit. Relax a little bit," Quick
said of his past two days. "You get to eat some greasy food.
You're not worried about your diet for a few days, which is fun. It's
good. It's a good experience."
Greene said he will probably take the Cup back
home to Michigan again this summer. Figuratively speaking, though,
the Cup might not be leaving Southern California anytime soon.
"You see this baby, right here?" Sutter
said as he tapped the trophy. "She's been gone for a couple of
years, and we're happy she's home."
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