The Key Three: April 22

With one flick of Jarret Stoll’s wrists, 18,890 people inside Rogers Arena fell silent, and a couple dozen went crazy. A hockey fan couldn’t ask for much more than what the Kings and the Vancouver Canucks gave in the third period and in overtime last night. The game play was emotional, intense and at a high level. And what an improbable collection of players it was, on the series-deciding play. There was Trevor Lewis, at one point of this season a healthy scratch, sacrificing his body to make a play. There was Dwight King, an AHL forward at the start of 2012, bursting up ice for a 2-on-1. There was Cory Schneider, Vancouver’s backup goalie at the start of the series, hoping for one more big save. Then there was Jarret Stoll, the old pro, the good-natured hard-working center who, for most of this season, has mystified Kings fans with his ability to score.

Stoll isn’t the tallest guy on the ice. In fact, sometimes he’s one of the shortest, but at 7:52 p.m. last night, his arms shot about 10 feet in the air after he beat Schneider with a high shot from the left faceoff circle and sent the Kings to the second round of the playoffs. The vast majority of media pundits predicted the Kings would lose to the Canucks. Only a handful even thought the Kings would win two games in the series. Their predictions weren’t unreasonable, given how strong the Canucks looked in the regular season. But the Kings play on, and the Canucks are done. What was the key aspect of the Kings’ 2-1 overtime victory over the Vancouver Canucks in Game 5? I present three options at the link below, and you can vote for your choice…

The Key Three: April 22

—–


For those who enjoy the traditional game recap, it can be found by clicking here.

Rules for Blog Commenting

  • No profanity, slurs or other offensive language. Replacing letters with symbols does not turn expletives into non-expletives.
  • Personal attacks against other blog commenters, and/or blatant attempts to antagonize other comments, are not tolerated. Respectful disagreement is encouraged. Posts that continually express the same singular opinion will be deleted.
  • Comments that incite political, religious or similar debates will be deleted.
  • Please do not discuss, or post links to websites that illegally stream NHL games.
  • Posting under multiple user names is not allowed. Do not type in all caps. All violations are subject to comment deletion and/or banning of commenters, per the discretion of the blog administrator.

Repeated violations of the blog rules will result in site bans, commensurate with the nature and number of offenses.

Please flag any comments that violate the site rules for moderation. For immediate problems regarding problematic posts, please email zdooley@lakings.com.