2014 Stanley Cup

Lore & Background

The Kings had home ice advantage in the series, as they 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. 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.

In Their Own Story

The ice in Madison Square Garden was slick and cold, the kind of cold that seeps through skates and into the bones. Kopitar stood at the blue line, stick in hand, watching the puck bounce off the boards. Around him, the Garden was a wall of noise—thirty thousand voices screaming for a Rangers victory, for the series to end, for the Kings to go home the way they always did. He could feel the vibration of it through the ice. Doughty was two steps behind him, breathing hard, eyes locked on the slot. Quick was in his crease, mask on, waiting. The puck dropped. The horn blared. And for the next few minutes, the only sound that mattered was the scrape of blades on ice, the thud of a puck hitting a glove, and the quiet, electric hum of a team that had refused, one more time, to go home empty-handed. When the final whistle blew, the noise in the Garden didn't stop. It changed. It became something else. It became a roar that belonged, for one impossible night, to the Kings.

Reader's Guide

The Kings overcame a two-goal deficit to win Game 1, 3–2 in overtime. In Game 2, they overcame three two-goal deficits to win 5–4 in double overtime. The series ended in Game 5, with the Kings winning their second championship in franchise history. The Kings became the first team in the salary-cap era to win two championships in the span of three years or less.

Did You Know?

• The Kings won their second Stanley Cup in franchise history, having first won in 2012.
• The Kings played a record 26 playoff games to win the Stanley Cup, the most ever for a champion at the time.
• The Kings became the fourth team in NHL playoff history to win a seven-game series after losing the first three games, defeating the San Jose Sharks in the first round.
• The Rangers were the first team since the 1972–73 Chicago Black Hawks to advance to the Stanley Cup Final without a captain.