The Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks played quite a game on Sunday night. We pulled out sixteen numbers to explain what happened at the United Center. Why sixteen?
16: Twelve wins down, four to go.
15: Including both the regular season and playoffs, Alec Martinez has fifteen goals in 2013-14. Coming into this season, he had thirteen in his career; 12 regular season goals, and a single playoff goal. Now, he’s got one of the most famous goals in the Los Angeles Kings’ history.
14: Justin Williams now has fourteen points in seven career Game Sevens. The fourteenth, an assist on the Alec Martinez game-winner, set an NHL record. The man is not human.
13: Jonathan Quick struggled in the first two periods, but in the third period, he stopped all thirteen shots he faced. The last save came with under ten seconds left, sending the game to overtime.
12: Marian Gaborik wears this number, but more importantly, he has a league-leading twelve goals in the 2014 playoffs. You could do worse at the trade deadline.
11: Brandon Saad and Andrew Shaw were each on the ice for eleven shot attempts at even strength. Along with Kane, they got the bulk of Chicago’s offensive zone starts; not surprisingly, they topped the Chicago Blackhawks’ Corsi figures.
10: LA survived this game despite a ten-minute stretch without a single shot attempt getting through to the net. And they were trailing! After ending the first period with good pressure, their first unblocked shot of the second came at 9:22 of the period.
9: Patrick Kane scored nine points in the final three games of this series. If the Blackhawks had pulled off a comeback from 3-1 down in the series, that was your reason why.
8: Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli each had a +8 shot differential at even strength. Toffoli’s presence on the final goal helps underscore the impact those two had on this series.
7: Kyle Clifford took a grand total of seven shifts tonight. Darryl Sutter essentially rotated three lines and Mike Richards, leaving Clifford to play a team-low 2:52. (The enigmatic Kris Versteeg also only got seven shifts for Chicago; Brandon Bollig got four.)
6: Marian Hossa had a team-leading six shots on goal, but was again shut out. Hossa got 28 shots on net in these seven games without scoring a single goal. Tough luck.
5: The teams combined for five goals in the first period. That’s a Game 7 record.
4: Anze Kopitar has only gone four games without a point in the 2014 playoffs. He was quiet in Game 7, but he picked up the secondary assist on Gaborik’s goal and leads all players with 24 playoff points.
3: The Blackhawks had three separate leads, but LA was able to make up deficits of 2-0, 3-2, and 4-3 during the game. Adversity, etc.
2: Matt Greene wears this number; he also had two assists. On top of that, he had the best possession numbers of anyone in the game, with Alec Martinez right behind him. A great night for the third defensive pairing, and one that could leave Robyn Regehr in the press box even after he gets healthy.
1: There is now one team in NHL history which has advanced to the Cup Finals by playing three consecutive seven-game series.