Not sure Los Angeles and Phoenix are what anyone would consider to be classic hockey cities, but a team from one of them will be playing for the Stanley Cup.
The Kings, a team that it would be tough to argue as anything less than the hottest in the playoffs, punched their ticket to the Western Conference Finals by sweeping the St. Louis Blues on Sunday. The Phoenix Coyotes became the other half of the equation when the beat the Predators Monday night to take the series 4 games to 1. How in Nashville is considered part of the Western Conference is beyond me, but that's a discussion for another time and place.
The Kings and Coyotes played each other 6 times during the regular season, with LA coming away with a slight advantage. The Kings record versus the Coyotes was 3-1-2 with three of the games going past regulation. It's very easy to see these teams are quite evenly matched. In fact, Coyotes netminder Mike Smith might be the only goalie playing near the level Kings goalie Jonathan Quick has been so far.
After looking at the postseason statistics for both teams, it would be tough to see this series being anything less than 6 games. The Kings are allowing 1.56 goals per game, the best in the playoffs, and Phoenix is allowing 1.91 which is second best. LA is scoring 3.00 goals for game, tied for 3rd best, Phoenix is scoring 2.64, which 4 best. The Kings are averaging nearly 6 more minor penalty minutes per game, but they also have the best penalty kill percentage. The Coyotes do convert on powerplays 16.1 percent of the time and the Kings are only scoring with an advantage 8.5 percent of the time, 2nd to last of all the teams that made the playoffs.
The keys for LA in this series are simple. They need to be a bit more disciplined than they were when they were facing the Blues, which really shouldn't be an issue. At the same time, they still need to play physical hockey. They can't back down, they need to stay in the same frame of mind they have since game 1 in Vancouver. The biggest thing, and this goes without saying I think, is going to be goaltending. If Quick plays the way he has and Smith keeps up his stinginess, this is going to be a very low scoring series. My prediction (complete with a whole lot of Kings bias thrown in) is Kings in 6. The schedule for the series has yet to be announced.
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