2014 Kings vs. 2024 Panthers

[pb1300]

After thinking about this more, I wonder if Florida taking LA to game 6 or 7 is giving way too much credit to Florida simply due to me being happy that Edmonton lost.

While you can match up the forwards reasonably, despite people talking about the Florida second line, the Kings have two 40 goal-capable in their top six. Kopitar can be in the same class as Barkov, big strong guys who play a two way game.

Goaltenders, 2014 Quick vs. 2024 Bobrovsky is close enough.

Defense-wise, however, there is a clear advantage on the Kings side with their top pairing. 2024 playoff Ekblad is maybe in the same class as 2014 Voynov. Both are RHs PMDs. But there is no player at the caliber of 2014 playoff Drew Doughty and the pairing of Doughty/Muzzin is head and shoulders above any pair on Florida.

Also the amount of playoff experience in the core players is much greater, not even counting the 2012 Championship. Mitchell 2011 Final, Richards and Carter 2010 Final, Williams...accomplishments way too long to discuss. Not counting Gagne since he wasn't a core player.

So comparing rosters, 2014 LA is clearly better than 2024 Florida and it's not close.


LA's 2014 playoff opponents:
1st Round: defeated Stanley Cup favorites San Jose in a reverse sweep
This team had a 1C (Thornton), 1W (Pavelski, C playing as W), 2C (Couture), 1D (Vlasic),

2nd Round: defeated SC contender Anaheim
This team had a 1C (Getzlaf), 1W (Perry), 2C (Rackell), 1D (Lindholm), 1G (Gibson)

3rd Round: defeated SC dynasty Chicago in arguably the greatest series in modern hockey
This team had 1C (Toews), 3x 1Ws (Hossa and Kane), 1D (Keith), 1G Crawford and many other standout players like Hjalmarsson and Saad.

Final Round: dominated NYR keeping third period and OT record for a spotless 169:39 shutout minutes, not counting second periods and not counting the shutout game.

All three of these teams ran 4 complete lines and three complete defensive pairings. Those are the teams that the Kings beat in 7, in 2014. Who did Florida face? In the Final they got taken to 7 games by a team that has a mediocre defense and a bad goaltender.


Any measure of regular season stats is meaningless and playoff record without context is disingenuous.

Florida had a great run ending in a highly respectable Cup run. But by no means in any book is this a legendary run. There's a reason why people are still talking about the 2014 Kings

Yes, written as would a Kings fan.

You’re acting like it was sheer luck for the Panthers. It’s not like Florida didn’t have to go through one of the toughest goaltending trios a playoff team has gone through in recent history (Vasi, Swayman, Shesterkin) just to get to the finals. They were the best defensive team in the league, and for all but a handful of games in the playoffs, they were just as good defensively. They had 3 scoring lines and 2 elite defensive lines as well.

It would be a tough nosed series where both teams would be devastated with injuries afterwards, that could go either way. Relax with the whole not even close BS.

 

[dgibb10]

After thinking about this more, I wonder if Florida taking LA to game 6 or 7 is giving way too much credit to Florida simply due to me being happy that Edmonton lost.

While you can match up the forwards reasonably, despite people talking about the Florida second line, the Kings have two 40 goal-capable in their top six. Kopitar can be in the same class as Barkov, big strong guys who play a two way game.

Goaltenders, 2014 Quick vs. 2024 Bobrovsky is close enough.

Defense-wise, however, there is a clear advantage on the Kings side with their top pairing. 2024 playoff Ekblad is maybe in the same class as 2014 Voynov. Both are RHs PMDs. But there is no player at the caliber of 2014 playoff Drew Doughty and the pairing of Doughty/Muzzin is head and shoulders above any pair on Florida.

Also the amount of playoff experience in the core players is much greater, not even counting the 2012 Championship. Mitchell 2011 Final, Richards and Carter 2010 Final, Williams...accomplishments way too long to discuss. Not counting Gagne since he wasn't a core player.

So comparing rosters, 2014 LA is clearly better than 2024 Florida and it's not close.


LA's 2014 playoff opponents:
1st Round: defeated Stanley Cup favorites San Jose in a reverse sweep
This team had a 1C (Thornton), 1W (Pavelski, C playing as W), 2C (Couture), 1D (Vlasic),

2nd Round: defeated SC contender Anaheim
This team had a 1C (Getzlaf), 1W (Perry), 2C (Rackell), 1D (Lindholm), 1G (Gibson)

3rd Round: defeated SC dynasty Chicago in arguably the greatest series in modern hockey
This team had 1C (Toews), 3x 1Ws (Hossa and Kane), 1D (Keith), 1G Crawford and many other standout players like Hjalmarsson and Saad.

Final Round: dominated NYR keeping third period and OT record for a spotless 169:39 shutout minutes, not counting second periods and not counting the shutout game.

All three of these teams ran 4 complete lines and three complete defensive pairings. Those are the teams that the Kings beat in 7, in 2014. Who did Florida face? In the Final they got taken to 7 games by a team that has a mediocre defense and a bad goaltender.


Any measure of regular season stats is meaningless and playoff record without context is disingenuous.

Florida had a great run ending in a highly respectable Cup run. But by no means in any book is this a legendary run. There's a reason why people are still talking about the 2014 Kings

The kings run was memorable/legendary because they went life and death in every playoff series.

Memorable doesn't make them better.

Also John Gibson was a 20 year old with 3 career NHL games under his belt. Let's be real here.

"Not counting second periods". Needing 3 overtimes out of your 4 wins is not dominating.

 

[dgibb10]

While you can match up the forwards reasonably, despite people talking about the Florida second line, the Kings have two 40 goal-capable in their top six. Kopitar can be in the same class as Barkov, big strong guys who play a two way game.

Where are these 2 40 goal forwards?

Are you referring to carter who did it 1 time a half decade as a 40 goal player lmao.

Gaborik was the only player on that kings roster to reach 40 goals in a season (2 years prior to that cup) within the entire 2010 DECADE.

Might as well call Tarasenko a 40 goal scorer for florida while you're at it

 

[SnowblindNYR]

The kings run was memorable/legendary because they went life and death in every playoff series.

Memorable doesn't make them better.

Also John Gibson was a 20 year old with 3 career NHL games under his belt. Let's be real here.

"Not counting second periods". Needing 3 overtimes out of your 4 wins is not dominating.

There's a reason why Kings fans only want to include third periods in OT, because the Rangers outscored them in like 4 of the 5 games in the first two periods and a team trailing virtually the entire series goes against the narrative that they dominated the Rangers. If not for the 2012 Kings, the 2014 Kings wouldn't be viewed as an unstoppable juggernaut that wiped the floor with the Rangers.

 

[Voight]

After thinking about this more, I wonder if Florida taking LA to game 6 or 7 is giving way too much credit to Florida simply due to me being happy that Edmonton lost.

While you can match up the forwards reasonably, despite people talking about the Florida second line, the Kings have two 40 goal-capable in their top six. Kopitar can be in the same class as Barkov, big strong guys who play a two way game.

Goaltenders, 2014 Quick vs. 2024 Bobrovsky is close enough.

Defense-wise, however, there is a clear advantage on the Kings side with their top pairing. 2024 playoff Ekblad is maybe in the same class as 2014 Voynov. Both are RHs PMDs. But there is no player at the caliber of 2014 playoff Drew Doughty and the pairing of Doughty/Muzzin is head and shoulders above any pair on Florida.

Also the amount of playoff experience in the core players is much greater, not even counting the 2012 Championship. Mitchell 2011 Final, Richards and Carter 2010 Final, Williams...accomplishments way too long to discuss. Not counting Gagne since he wasn't a core player.

So comparing rosters, 2014 LA is clearly better than 2024 Florida and it's not close.


LA's 2014 playoff opponents:
1st Round: defeated Stanley Cup favorites San Jose in a reverse sweep
This team had a 1C (Thornton), 1W (Pavelski, C playing as W), 2C (Couture), 1D (Vlasic),

2nd Round: defeated SC contender Anaheim
This team had a 1C (Getzlaf), 1W (Perry), 2C (Rackell), 1D (Lindholm), 1G (Gibson)

3rd Round: defeated SC dynasty Chicago in arguably the greatest series in modern hockey
This team had 1C (Toews), 3x 1Ws (Hossa and Kane), 1D (Keith), 1G Crawford and many other standout players like Hjalmarsson and Saad.

Final Round: dominated NYR keeping third period and OT record for a spotless 169:39 shutout minutes, not counting second periods and not counting the shutout game.

All three of these teams ran 4 complete lines and three complete defensive pairings. Those are the teams that the Kings beat in 7, in 2014. Who did Florida face? In the Final they got taken to 7 games by a team that has a mediocre defense and a bad goaltender.


Any measure of regular season stats is meaningless and playoff record without context is disingenuous.

Florida had a great run ending in a highly respectable Cup run. But by no means in any book is this a legendary run. There's a reason why people are still talking about the 2014 Kings

2014 Blackhawks also had Patrick Sharp, who had his best offensive season that year.

 

[dgibb10]

There's a reason why Kings fans only want to include third periods in OT, because the Rangers outscored them in like 4 of the 5 games in the first two periods and a team trailing virtually the entire series goes against the narrative that they dominated the Rangers. If not for the 2012 Kings, the 2014 Kings wouldn't be viewed as an unstoppable juggernaut that wiped the floor with the Rangers.

If not for Anti Niemi colossal bed shitting, the 2014 kings would be known as a team that got dogwalked in 4 games of the first round.

And boy did they get outplayed in that series.


Kings fans keep asking why it's a criticism when they don't have good regular seasons (12), and criticism when they don't dominate the playoffs (14).

But in order to be viewed among the best of the cup winners, you need to do both at the same time. Every cup winner won a cup.

So the worst regular season teams among them (like the 11-12 kings and 94-95 devils for example) will not be viewed highly even if they run through the playoffs.

And then the 2014 kings were STILL an underwhelming regular season team compared to most cup winners, and then followed it up with arguably the least dominant postseason of any cup winners, losing 10 games along the way and needing 5 of their 16 wins to come in overtime as well.

 

[Ghetty Green]

There's a reason why Kings fans only want to include third periods in OT, because the Rangers outscored them in like 4 of the 5 games in the first two periods and a team trailing virtually the entire series goes against the narrative that they dominated the Rangers. If not for the 2012 Kings, the 2014 Kings wouldn't be viewed as an unstoppable juggernaut that wiped the floor with the Rangers.

It's been 10 years bro. You're still whining ?

 

[SnowblindNYR]

It's been 10 years bro. You're still whining ?

This is a thread about the 2014 Kings. I'm whining about because there's a narrative that the Rangers were some God awful team that got decimated in the final, which isn't true.