This Day in Hockey History – June 11, 2012 – Kings Crowned Champions

Jun 11, 2019

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After 45 years as an NHL franchise, the Los Angeles Kings finally ruled the league. At the end of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals, held June 11, 2012, the Kings were crowned the champions.

The 2011-12 season did not go smoothly for the Kings. After the firing of head coach Terry Murray, Darryl Sutter replaced him in December. The change meant moving from a defensive mindset to bringing on some offense. In a last-minute trade, the Kings welcomed Jeff Carter. Sutter summarized what happened next. “These guys, you know what, since March 1 they’ve lost about six games. They’ve taken a lot of public negativity toward them. Look what they’ve just done. It’s pretty awesome. Tells you what type of players they are.” Despite improving their record, it took until the second-to-last regular-season game to clinch a playoff berth.

With their 95 points (40-27-15), the Kings were the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. That meant that in the first round they had to face the winners of the President’s Trophy and thus No. 1 seed, the Vancouver Canucks. In what would become a pattern, the Kings won the first three games of the series. They then completed their victory in Game 5 to win their first playoff series since 2001. Thus began their “rampage” through the Western Conference in only 14 games, matching the record (since the system changed in 1987). The Kings swept the No. 2 seed St. Louis Blues and needed five games again to defeat the No. 3 seed Phoenix Coyotes. Along the way, the Kings won all ten road games and even eliminated the first and third opponents on the road. They were the first to defeat the top three seeds in their conference and the first three games in each of those series.

Having made it to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time since 1993, the Kings took on the New Jersey Devils. The Devils had won the championship in 1995, 2000, and 2003. This season in the league, they were the No. 9 seed overall, which was still higher than the Kings at No. 13. That made this the first time a playoff matchup had such high-numbered seeds. Both Los Angeles and New Jersey had arenas built since the last time their teams made the playoffs, so this would be the first Stanley Cup finals at the Staples Center and Prudential Center.

As they had become accustomed to, the Kings won the first two games despite being on the road. They both ended 2-1 after overtime. On home ice, the Kings shutout the Devils 4-0 in Game 3 but then lost 3-1. The series started to look shaky after they also lost Game 5 (2-1) back in New Jersey.

Game 6 took place at the Staples Center for a crowd of 18,858. Los Angeles took control during the first period thanks to a major penalty. At 10:10, Steve Bernier received five minutes for boarding and a ten-minute game misconduct after hitting defenseman Rob Scuderi face-first into the boards. Despite what some Devils supporters thought about the fairness of the call, the NHL sent the message that hits from behind would not be tolerated. During what must have felt like the longest five minutes of the Devils’ lives, the Kings scored three power-play goals. Captain Dustin Brown led the charge, followed by newbie Jeff Carter and Trevor Lewis.

The second period began (at 1:50) with a second goal from Carter and ended (at 18:45) with the only goal New Jersey would score that night. The only scoring action in the third period took only 15 seconds. At 16:15, Lewis scored an empty-netter, and at 16:30, with Martin Brodeur returned to the net, Matt Greene sunk the final postseason goal. In this one game, Lewis had two goals, Brown had a goal and an assist, and Drew Doughty, Mike Richards, and Dwight King each had two assists. Other than the 1991 8-0 finale, this game was the most lopsided to win the Cup.

As soon as the game ended, the victorious Kings crowded around goalie Jonathan Quick, near his net. Black and silver streamers rained down on them. Quick, with his 1.41 goals-against average and .946 save percentage, earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He was the third American winner (after Brian Leetch (1994) and Tim Thomas (2011)).

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman handed the Stanley Cup to Captain Brown to hoist first. He noted the Cup was “heavier than I thought . . . There’s no words to describe, lifting that thing.” Brown then reflected, “It’s one of those things you dream all your life for as a player. The city of Los Angeles has been dreaming of this for 45 years. There were about 20 million dreams coming true tonight.” Even though the city had been waiting longer, Brown said, “You dream of winning the Cup, and you know what, I’m glad I was the first King to ever lift it.” Brown and his counterpart, New Jersey’s Zach Parise, were the first U.S.-born captains to face off against each other in the championship round. Only one other American captain (Derian Hatcher in 1999) had hoisted the Cup before Brown.

As for Coach Sutter, though he had never won the Cup as a player, two of his brothers (Duane and Brent) had done so multiple times. He merely remarked that winning the Cup “It was pretty awesome.” A retired trainer, Pete Demers, poured a beer that he had kept from the locker room of the 1993 loss into the Cup to taste. He enthused, “And that old rotten beer tasted great.”

So far, the Kings have been the only No. 8 seed, the lowest to date, to win the Cup since the seed system began in 1994. They were only the second team (after the Devils in 1995) to win without having the home-ice advantage in any playoff round. The Kings were also the second Californian team to win since the Anaheim Ducks had done so back in 2007. They were the second-to-last of the 1967 expansion teams to win. Finally, the Kings were the fourth consecutive team to take home the Cup at the end of a season that began with a European Premiere.

Los Angeles followed up this victory with another in 2014.