Jonathan Quick Vezina Trophy 2012

Lore & Background

By the 2011–12 season, Jonathan Quick had already shed the label of 'project' that clung to him through his early years in Los Angeles. Drafted by the Kings in 2006, he spent several seasons splitting time with a backup and learning the NHL's punishing pace before the reins were handed to him full-time. What emerged was a goaltender unlike most in the league: unusually tall, unafraid to play the puck with his hands in the neutral zone, and possessed of a calm that bordered on the meditative. Fans at the Staples Center learned to read his body language—the slight head tilt, the deliberate weight shift before a save—as if watching a chess player think three moves ahead.

The 2012 Vezina arrived in the shadow of the Kings' first Stanley Cup, a 4-2 series victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins that ended a 39-year championship drought. Quick started every game of that run, and the city of Los Angeles, long starved for a championship sport, treated him as a folk hero. He was not the flashiest star; he did not score 50 goals or light up highlight reels with wrist shots. He simply stood in the crease, tall and unhurried, and made the impossible look routine. The Vezina, in that context, felt less like a statistical award and more like a city finally saying, 'We see you. You were the one holding the line.'

His second Vezina in 2014 confirmed that the 2012 honour was no fluke. In between, Quick became a fixture of the Kings' identity—a player whose number would carry weight in the locker room long after his playing days ended. For a franchise that had spent decades as a punchline in the NHL, having a goaltender win the league's top individual award for the position was a quiet, stubborn proof that Los Angeles belonged in the conversation.

In Their Own Story

The arena lights hummed their low, electric buzz. Quick stood behind the net, sticks planted, and watched the empty rink settle into its blue-white glow. The crowd noise from the third period still echoed in the rafters—thousands of voices, a city that had waited so long it had almost forgotten what it felt like to believe. He peeled off his mask, set it on the ice, and for a moment just breathed. The Vezina would come later, in a hotel ballroom with a crystal cup and a speech he'd rehearse in a mirror. Right now, in the quiet, it was just the smell of cold rubber and the faint scuff marks of a hundred pucks, and the knowledge that he had stood between his team and the world, and the world had not broken through. He picked up his mask, skated to the bench, and let the roar wash over him one more time.

Reader's Guide

Who: Jonathan Quick, Los Angeles Kings goaltender, #30. When: Vezina Trophy awarded in 2012 for the 2011–12 NHL season. Context: The season in which the Kings captured their first Stanley Cup, defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2 in the Finals. Quick started every game of the postseason run.

Key comparison points: • Quick won the Vezina in both 2012 and 2014, making him the only Kings goaltender to claim the award twice. • The 2012 Vezina came in a championship season, a context that elevates it beyond a purely statistical honour. • His 6'5" frame made him one of the tallest active goaltenders in the NHL during that era, a physical attribute that informed his playing style.

Quick's 2012 Vezina is best understood not in isolation but as the capstone of a season in which the Kings' goaltending was the fulcrum of a historic run. The award recognized a body of work—regular-season consistency, playoff composure, and a willingness to manage the game from the crease—that aligned perfectly with the team's identity that year. In the broader Vezina history, Quick stands as a modern-era winner whose two trophies (2012, 2014) bookended a period in which the Kings were a top-tier defensive team in the Western Conference.

Did You Know?

• Jonathan Quick is one of the few goaltenders in NHL history to win the Vezina Trophy twice, claiming it in both 2012 and 2014, both times with the Los Angeles Kings.
• At 6 feet 5 inches, Quick was significantly taller than the average NHL goaltender of his era, and he leaned into that frame with a distinctive puck-handling, 'no-huddle' style that drew both admiration and controversy.
• The 2012 Vezina came in the same season the Kings won their first Stanley Cup, ending a 39-year championship drought for the franchise.
• Quick was drafted by the Kings in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft and spent his entire professional career with the franchise, making him a true one-team loyalist in a league defined by free agency.