“Bounces” still a topic of discussion

There have been several perspectives on “bounces” this series. There’s New York’s perspective, led by Alain Vigneault, in which the Rangers had been befallen by poor puck luck before the Hockey Gods took notice and reversed a trend so that a pair of net-bound Los Angeles pucks stopped short of the goal line (or on top of it) behind Henrik Lundqvist.

And then there’s the perspective that seemed to be popular in Los Angeles’ room today in that luck can be earned.

“You work for your bounces,” Jarret Stoll said. “You work for your luck, and how many times have we seen in the playoffs and the regular season anytime where your pucks are going of legs and elbows and gloves and whatever to go into the net? You’ve got to work to get there. That’s how you get your bounces and your luck. I think it all works out over the course of a game and of a season.”

The topic of bounces certainly works its way into conversation when the fortunate hops occur at opportune times, such as Dan Girardi fanning on a pass leading to Justin Williams’ game-winner in Game 1, Dustin Brown’s defection game-winner in Game 2, or the deflections and pucks behind Lundqvist in Game 4.

“It happened in Game 3 too,” Brown said. “The only difference was we were up 3-0 when it happened, so no one talked about it. To have it happen twice in a game, I don’t know. Again, if we’re harder in those areas they’re in the net.”

In what sense, “harder”?

“Better in terms of finishing, better in terms of forechecking, better in terms of little things,” Williams said. “Finishing checks. Just every little aspect of the game.”

There was a sense within the Kings’ room on Thursday that while they had a quality effort in the Game 4 loss, they didn’t do enough to win the game.

“I mean, there were a lot of factors. Obviously [Lundqvist] was good,” Williams said. “We didn’t get what we wanted, and that has a lot to do with not just shooting the puck, it has to do with screens, traffic, rebounds, all of such that beat every goalie in this league.”

“You always have to look at the end result. Where we’re sitting right now, we’re sitting nice. We’re sitting exactly where we want to be, but we need to elevate our game, just as they did for Game 4, if we’re going to have a chance to win [Game] 5.”

Whether you refer to the benevolence of the Hockey Gods, mathematical and reasonable acts of physics in sports, or any other label used to determine the effect of seemingly arbitrary events or “bounces” in a hockey game, they should even out over a best-of-seven series. On Thursday, Vigneault continued his description of such events.

“Anybody that’s been in this game for any amount of time knows that there’s battles on the ice and sometimes whether you call it hockey gods or hockey plays or whatever, like when Dan was shooting the puck from the point and the knob of his stick stays in his hand, you can call that a hockey play or you can call it whatever you want. It doesn’t matter to me,” Vigneault said. “Those are things that happen. Bounces happen during the game. Hopefully by being in the right position with the right frame of mind, the right understanding of the game, you can be on those bounces the right way, whether they be defensive plays or offensive plays.”

Jarret Stoll, on whether it’s possible to be happy with the game but not the result:
I think this time of the year, it’s all about the result, whether you win or lose. We know we can do more, especially at the start of games. That’s going to be our focus going into Game 5 – being better at the start, being harder, being heavier – all those good things.

Stoll, on the plane ride back to Los Angeles:
It was fine. Had a good Chilean sea bass. It was good. The food was great, actually. Really good catering last night. Got a good probably three hours of sleep. A lot of guys were sleeping. [Reporter: What kind of wine did you have with that?] Didn’t have any wine. No, just some Gatorade.

Stoll, on the effects of having played 25 playoff games:
You’ve got to realize what you’re playing for, who you’re playing, what it’s all about, why you play the game. This is why you play the game. It doesn’t matter how many games you play. You’ve got energy, you’ve got jump. You should, if you realize what you’re playing for. Yeah, it’s a lot of games, but that’s why we play.

Stoll, on clinching at home versus on the road:
We’ve won three games. We’ve got to win four. It doesn’t matter where you win the fourth. I think that’s a no-brainer.

Stoll, on how to be better at the start of the game:
It’s sports. It’s why you play the game. You try to be as best prepared as you can and make sure we’re doing the right things at the start of the game. I can’t answer that. We weren’t hard enough, we weren’t heavy enough like the team that we are. We got better as the game went on and obviously things started happening for us, but it was too little, too late, I think, for how we wanted to play the game.

Stoll, on the team’s high confidence:
Yeah, we’re fine, totally. We just realize we’ve got to play a full game. This time of year, against a good team in the Stanley Cup Final, you can’t play 30 minutes or 40 minutes, especially when you’re down. Come out, have a good first 20 minutes, really have a good push, just play our way, our game, our style. We’ll go from there.