Four Wins From the Brink

With 1:21 left in the second period of Game 7, Justin Williams found Anže Kopitar, who beat San Jose goaltender Antti Niemi with a backhand. The Los Angeles Kings had a 2–1 lead. By the end of the night, April 30, 2014, at SAP Center, they had won 5–1 and completed four consecutive victories after losing the first three games of their Western Conference first-round series.

The Sharks had outscored Los Angeles 17–8 in those opening three games, taking the third in overtime. They needed one more win to advance. Instead, the Kings won Game 4, then allowed only two goals across the remaining three games. Los Angeles became the fourth NHL team to win a best-of-seven series from a 3–0 deficit, joining Toronto in 1942, the New York Islanders in 1975 and Philadelphia in 2010.

The deciding game did not begin as a rout. After a scoreless first period, Matt Irwin put San Jose ahead 28 seconds into the second, sending a shot from the point through a screen and past Jonathan Quick. It was the Sharks’ first lead since Game 3. Less than a minute later, a Los Angeles penalty gave San Jose a power play and an opportunity to extend the lead.

That advantage ended with a hooking penalty on Tommy Wingels. An elbowing call against Logan Couture then briefly left the Sharks two men short. At 4:57, before Wingels could return to the play, Drew Doughty scored to tie the game. San Jose had three more power plays during the period; Los Angeles killed all three. On one of those chances, Patrick Marleau had the puck near the crease with Quick out of position. Quick threw himself across and caught the shot with his glove at the goal line.

“Those were obviously critical,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said of the penalty kills. “Jonathan was able to make that one highlight save. I think that gave us a little momentum.” Quick finished with 39 saves. He had allowed 16 goals in the first three games, then five over the four victories. “They just played real tight defensively and their goaltender got hot like he usually does this time of the year,” San Jose’s Joe Thornton said.

After the last of those second-period penalty kills, Kopitar scored the go-ahead goal. Early in the third, Tanner Pearson’s no-look pass set up Tyler Toffoli to make it 3–1. San Jose managed only two shots through the first 12 minutes of that period. Dustin Brown and Pearson added late empty-net goals. The Sharks finished the series without converting any of their final 15 power-play opportunities.

The Kings moved on to face Anaheim. Brown, their captain, pointed to the Stanley Cup the group had won together two years earlier: “When you’ve gone to the top of the mountain with the same group of guys it’s a little bit easier when you’re at the bottom to come up.”

For Couture, the immediate prospect was a summer with the loss. “Every year you lose is pretty low,” he said. “But this one is the type of series that will rip your heart out. It hurts. It’s going to be a long summer thinking about this one, and what we let slip away.”