Philadelphia, PA (Sports Network) - There is no doubt the Los Angeles Kings
earned the club's second-ever berth in the Stanley Cup Finals, but the
way the Western Conference finals ended was nothing short of surreal.
One minute it appeared the Kings and Phoenix Coyotes were headed for a second
overtime in Game 5, but everything changed in an instant. Before you knew it,
the teams were going through the motions in one of the most awkward handshake
lines the Stanley Cup playoffs have ever seen.
Just seconds after L.A. forward Dustin Brown went unpenalized for drilling
Phoenix defenseman Michal Rozsival with a vicious, but seemingly legal hit,
the Kings ended the game and the series on a goal by Dustin Penner.
After some livid Coyote fans at Jobing.com Arena rained debris down on the
Kings' celebration, the two teams got together at center ice for the
traditional series-ending handshakes.
Normally, all is forgotten by the time the teams converge to exchange
niceties, but in this instance, the wound was too fresh. A few Coyotes
players, including team captain Shane Doan, seemed to have testy exchanges
with Brown in the handshake line.
Thankfully, words, and not fists, were the only things hurled. In a sport in
which the loss of respect between players is often cited as a concern, a
tradition as simple as shaking hands at the end of a series without a brawl
breaking out is an important one.
Of course, players from both sides viewed Brown's hit on Rozsival differently.
The hit itself appeared to be legal, but it came a split second after the
whistle blew for an offsides call. That being said, it wasn't late enough for
a penalty to be called and it's highly unlikely that it will be reviewed by
the league for a fine or suspension.
As Brown saw it, "Rozsival was cutting to the middle and I cut across and made
contact. Obviously, they thought it was kneeing. I felt I got him with my
shoulder. My left side and his right side all made contact, from toe to
shoulder."
Brown is right that his shoulder was the initial point of contact. That means
the knee-to-knee contact, which is the part of the hit that apparently
injured Rozsival, was the unfortunate result of a hard, but legal check.
The most ridiculous opinion on this topic came from Phoenix goaltender Mike
Smith. The netminder was obviously emotional after getting knocked out of the
postseason, but Smith compared Brown's hit to the one that Coyotes enforcer
Raffi Torres delivered earlier this postseason on Chicago's Marian Hossa.
As a refresher, Torres was suspended 25 games for a very late and dangerously
high hit on the Blackhawks forward and few people argued with that penalty
because it was so clearly deserved. So, it's absolutely unfair for Smith to
say "if Raffi Torres gets 25 games for his hit during the play, then this guy
(Brown) ought to be done forever."
It's never easy to lose an overtime game at any point in the playoffs and
having your season end that way in the conference finals has to be one of the
most painful experiences an NHL player can experience. The emotion from the
Coyotes' players is understandable, but comments like Smith's shouldn't be
taken seriously because they were borne out of anger and not logic.
The Coyotes didn't lose the conference finals because of a single hit, they
lost it because the Kings were vastly superior throughout this series.
Acknowledging that fact will be easier in a few days or weeks from now because
even if emotion prevents the Coyotes from admitting it now, L.A. has nothing
to be ashamed of regarding how it earned its place in the Cup Finals.
The Sports Network