By Charles Jay
The Los Angeles Kings won their first Stanley Cup championship two season as ago. The New York Rangers like to think they are ready to ascend to the throne, but NHL bettors know they are not going to get far if they can’t protect a 2-0 lead like they had on Wednesday night, as they lost a 3-2 decision in overtime at the Staples Center.
This has to be considered a bonanza for the NHL, since the nation’s two largest media markets are involved in the finals. It is also an event in the sense that it is the first time since 1981 that a Los Angeles team met a New York team for the championship in any major professional sports league. The TV ratings for Game 1 were very encouraging, and should only continue to improve.
This was a season of major change for the Rangers, in the respect that they hired a new coach in Alain Vigneault, who was in Vancouver last season (while the Canucks hired the fired Ranger coach, John Tortorella) and the big Martin St. Louis-Ryan Callahan trade brought them some new leadership in the former league MVP and two-time scoring champion. The Kings made their own big in-season acquisition when they picked up former Ranger Martin Gaborik from Columbus.
Henrik Lundqvist has been sensational for the Rangers in the playoffs, with a 2.07 goals against average and the best save percentage in the league during the regular season (.928). Of course, hockey bettors should not forget that Jonathan Quick of Los Angeles had a .946 percentage and won the Conn Smythe Trophy in leading the Kings to the Cup two years ago, and he outplayed Lundqvist on Wednesday.
In VietBet’s Stanley Cup betting odds for Game 2, set for Saturday night at 7:35 PM ET at Staples, the Kings are the favorites once again:
Los Angeles Kings -155
New York Rangers +135
Under 5 Goals -125
Over 5 Goals -105
Vigneault has warned the Rangers that mistakes like the one Dan Girardi made shortly after the overtime started, which led directly to the winning goal by Justin Williams, are going to sink this team’s ship. It has been a gallant run to get here, but Los Angeles is a different animal than those teams New York beat to get to the Finals; after all, this is a team with enough resilience to come back from being down three games to nothing against San Jose; beating a 2-0 deficit is child’s play by comparison.
Los Angeles, which has now become a -275 favorite at VietBet to win the series, cut the Rangers’ lead in half before the first period was over, and didn’t even give the Broadway Blueshirts a chance in the third period, as they outshot New York by a 20-3 margin. Still, it really came down to the Girardi overtime mistake, so this was not necessarily a matter of this team being outclassed.
Vigneault, as it turns out, has immense respect for his team’s opponent. “They’re one of the best teams I’ve seen in a long time,” he says. He firmly believes that the Kings are a better team than they were in the Cup-winning season two years ago. Frankly, the Rangers had better hope not, and that they can find a chink in the armour. Stanley Cup bettors know that if Quick does indeed stay hot, there’s a big headache waiting for them by the time they get back to 8th Avenue and 33rd Street.
