Jonathan Quick Shuts The Door As Kings One Win Away From Championship

During the first two games of the Final, the Los Angeles Kings have never held a lead. They have had to come back in both games, before coming away with overtime victories. That took place in Los Angeles. Now the scene shifted to Madison Square Garden in New York for game three. Many Rangers fans were hoping that if the Kings jumped out to the lead, it would be a spark plug to get the Rangers going to pull off a win and get back in the series. Well the Kings did get a lead all right, but they were able to hold on to that lead and come away with a 3-0 lead in the game and a 3-0 lead in this final series.

New York and Los Angeles had chances in the opening period. Mats Zuccarello had a golden opportunity for the Rangers a little more than halfway through the frame but was shut down by this phenomenal save by Jonathan Quick:


That stop seemed to get the Kings rolling again. Late in the opening frame, the Rangers had a good chance but the door was shut again by Quick, who really seemed on his game on this night. Henrik Lundqvist had the same chances to deal with coming off the sticks of the Kings shooters. The difference is, Quick got solid support from his defense, where as Lundqvist had a few bad breaks. It all started with the opening goal of the hockey game which looked a little something like this:


For Carter, the goal was his 10th of the playoffs, coming on just the fifth shot of the night for the Kings. This was a wicked shot that just clipped the skate of diving defenseman Dan Girardi in front and caromed inside the right post with 0.7 seconds left. This would become sort of a recurring theme on the the night for how the Kings scored their goals. Los Angeles scored their final two goals in the 2nd period, and much like their first goal, came off bad deflections. Jake Muzzin made it 2-0 at 4:17 of the middle period, as the puck worked out to Muzzin at the point, who took the shot that struck New York's Martin St. Louis and found its way past Lundqvist. Then, Mike Richards finished a 2-on-1 with Trevor Lewis when his attempted pass across bounced back to him off McDonagh and was put it with 2:46 left in the second. That was all the scoring Los Angeles would need.

Los Angeles finished the night with a total of 15 shots, including just two in the final period, but that's really all they would need. The Rangers seemed to carry the play in game three, but the bounces just would really go there way. Now Henrik Lundqvist has played great all playoffs long, more often than not being really able to keep the Rangers in the game. Even on nights when Hank wasn't getting much offensive support, he still managed to keep the team in the game and get help from his defense. This night, however, it came back to bite them. It's nothing that Hank did wrong, he played a great game. Its just his defense was a little out of position that lead to the bad bounces that allowed the three pucks to hit the back of the net. So the Rangers defense, which is normally good, looked a little off in this contest.

Offensively, the Rangers played a good game, but they just weren't able to bury the puck in the back of the net. They had plenty of firepower, sending 32 shots on Jonathan Quick, all of which he got. There were a few saves he had to make, including the video above, that were big stops, but otherwise there weren't too many shots that had to test Quick. He didn't have to really make to many hard saves in game three.

An interesting note about this series is that the Kings have scored 11 goals in the series, all coming from 11 different players, none of whom are named Anze Kopitar. The fact he hasn't scored a goal in the finals is a little surprising. He is getting his assists of course but the goal department for Kopitar is empty. But I don't think he minds it. As for the Rangers, they have scored six goals in the finals, each coming from six different players. Martin St. Louis has one of the six goals, but Rick Nash and Brad Richards, the other two big guns in the Rangers lineup, have been really held in check in this series. Sure Nash had a few chances in Game Three, but again, he just could not finish the job. That's been a big difference in this series. Sure both teams have their role players doing their job. The Kings big offensive weapons have had an impact on this series, where those of the Rangers have been quite. The Rangers really haven't been able to establish their system like they did in the first three rounds.

For the Kings, being up in the series 3-0 in the finals is nothing new. They also had a 3-0 lead back in 2012 against the Devils before dropping games four and five, before finishing the series off in six games. So there is that ray of hope for the Rangers. Also it has happened once in history where a team has come back from down 0-3 in the finals, the Toronto Maple Leafs came back from down 0-3 to win the Stanley Cup in 1942. So it is possible for the Rangers to come all the way back and win the series, but it looks like a real long shot.

Game Four takes place Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Game will be televised on the NBC Sports Network with the puck scheduled to drop just a little after 8PM!