Are the Kings motivated by a fear of losing, disappointing?

The Kings are a team that hates losing, according to an interesting Jonathan Quick quote from April 16.

“I think sometimes you have two great teams and one team loves to win and one team hates to lose and I feel like the team that hates to lose will end up winning more times than not,” he said.

The fear of losing – or in this case, disappointment – appears to motivate one particularly productive rookie.

“There’s lots of leadership in the room and lots of experience,” Tanner Pearson explained. “There are lots of guys that have won the Cup, so they know what it takes to win. I think it translates to us young guys. We don’t want to let the team down, so we’re going to try to do everything we can to chip in.”

Considering he has nine points in 14 postseason games, whatever motivation he draws from the fear of letting his team down is apparently working.

“I’ve said over and over, these guys don’t like to lose and it shows just how far they go over the last couple years in the playoffs,” he said. “Guys don’t want their summers to come early. We’re trying to do everything we can to keep it going. We’ve done a good job of that so far and we have to have a good, strong series again.”

Pearson, on having two days in between games:
There was a quick turnaround after the Anaheim series, so it was nice to have those two days off. I think now the two days off between these two games is maybe a bit much. Like you said, we have momentum and we want to keep that going.

Pearson, on coming back to Staples Center with the series tied:
Going into their rink, they haven’t lost a game there all playoffs. I think to succeed in the playoffs, you have to be able to win on the road. To go back to Staples 1-1 is definitely going to help us out. We just have to capitalize on our chances.