2014 Stanley Cup Finals – 7-Game Series vs. Los Angeles Kings

Lore & Background

Los Angeles had home ice advantage in the series, as the Kings finished with a better regular season record than the Rangers. The series started on June 4 and ended on June 13 with the Kings winning their second Stanley Cup in three seasons. It was the first meeting between teams from New York City and Los Angeles for a major professional sports championship since the Yankees and the Dodgers played in the 1981 World Series. This was the eighth meeting between teams from Los Angeles and New York City for a major professional sports championship.

In Their Own Story

The ice in Dallas was cold that night, the kind of cold that seeps through the soles of your skates and settles in your lungs. Benn skated the puck up the left wing, the crowd noise a physical wall pressing against his helmet. He could feel Quick's eyes tracking him from the far net, that calm, unreadable gaze. The Kings' defence slid in like a curtain dropping—Doughty's stick checking, the blue line folding. Seguin came around the slot, the puck snapped across, and for a half-second the whole building held its breath. Then the Kings' D-man tipped it wide, the rebound bouncing off the boards, and the horn sounded. 4–2. The Kings would lift the Cup in six. In the tunnel, Benn sat on the bench, his stick still in his hand, and listened to the distant, muffled sound of a city that had just watched its closest shot at a banner dissolve into the night.

Reader's Guide

The Kings overcame a two-goal deficit to defeat the Rangers 3–2 in game one. In game two, the Kings overcame three two-goal deficits to defeat the Rangers 5–4 in double overtime. The series then shifted to New York. The Kings won the series four games to one.

Did You Know?

• The Kings' Stanley Cup–winning run of 26 playoff games was later tied by the 2019 St. Louis Blues for the longest of any Stanley Cup–winning team in history.
• The Rangers became the first team ever to play two full seven-game series in the first two rounds of the playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup Final, a feat later matched and exceeded in the same postseason by the Kings.
• Mats Zuccarello became the first Norwegian to play in the Stanley Cup Final.
• The Kings became the first team in the salary-cap era to win two championships in the span of three years or less.