How The 2022 Los Angeles Kings Are Like The 2013 Chicago Blackhawks
By Ant Barberio
Every year before the playoffs NHL.com writes a series of articles on why each playoff team “will” win the Stanley Cup. Every one of the 16 teams in the postseason gets their own write-up of why they will be the last team standing. Don’t get your hopes too high, NHL fans. After all 15 of those articles will be wrong.
The Los Angeles Kings are returning to the playoffs for the first time since the 2017-2018 NHL season. With that, NHL.com gave them the winner article treatment. The main selling point is that they have the same core of Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty and Johnathan Quick as they did during their 2012 and 2014 cup championship.
A team that won the cup to follow up that performance a few seasons later with a cast of characters almost entirely different with the exception of a few key pieces may sound familiar in recent memory. It’s what the Chicago Blackhawks did in 2010 and 2013. In between the first two cups of their mini-dynasty, only nine players had their names out twice on the Stanley Cup as members of both teams. Of course, that includes franchise mainstays Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith.
The Los Angeles Kings are back in the NHL playoffs. Just like the 2013 Chicago Blackhawks, their roster looks quite different from their last cup championship.
The main difference between the Kings and Blackhawks’ big three is that Los Angeles still has the greatest goalie in franchise history, and 2012 Conn Smythe winner, Jonathan Quick in goal. Chicago handed the crease over to Corey Crawford after having to let Antti Niemi walk away while Quick has been a stabilizing president for over a decade.
Quick may have single-handedly delivered the Kings a cup in 2012, but that was once upon a time in Hollywood. Although Quick started the majority of Los Angeles’ games this past season, Cal Peterson took on the 1B workload starting in 37 games. Quick may be good, but he’s removed from those playoff heroics that made him the NHL’s best.
How they arrived at their rosters is also different. The Blackhawks had to deconstruct and reconstruct their roster between 2010 and 2013 because of the salary cap. The Kings had to undergo a more traditional rebuild over the past few seasons after their cup window closed. Remember, those Kings’ Stanley Cup championships were built on defense and playing a physical game, not speed and the youth of today.
Will the Kings earn their third cup in franchise history? The Edmonton Oilers are a worthy opponent. The Oilers may have the two best players in the world, but the Kings have reliable goaltending. That’s something Oilers fans have wanted for years.