Kings follow their marching orders to another magical playoff victory

NEWARK, N.J. — The Kings had been shoved from their lofty postseason perch and landed squarely in hell.

That's what it looked like. That's what it felt like.

The lights at the Prudential Center went dim, the scoreboard glowed red, the speakers blared "Highway to Hell" while thousands of fans sang an ominous curse.

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The Kings were on the verge of being crushed by Devils. They had lost their lead, lost their composure, and should have lost this Stanley Cup Final opener in regulation, but New Jersey's Mark Fayne missed an open corner of the net with 10 minutes remaining.

Overtime. At this place known as the Rock, the Kings trudged off the ice as if pelted by doubt. But then, in what is currently the most charmed dressing room in sports, three orders were issued.

"Catch your breath. Suck it up. Keep fighting."

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Rob Scuderi repeated it. He wasn't sure who said it. Does it matter who said it? The entire room bought it. And at 8:13 of overtime, they all did it.

Justin Williams made a no-look pass, Anze Kopitar juked and shot, the Kings scored a Showtime goal to beat the Devils, and, lordy, the magic grows.

People, this is real. Folks, this could happen. With a 2-1 overtime victory here Wednesday night, the Kings moved to within three victories of winning their first Stanley Cup championship in the club's 45-year history.

They have won an NHL-record nine consecutive playoff games on the road this year. They are unbeaten in three overtime games. And now they've survived the best goalie in history while being slowed by sweaty and choppy ice, and they've done it with heroics from their most obscure player and their most skilled star.

"Everybody in this room has a voice," said Williams late Wednesday, looking around a room that reeked with three hours of deep sweat.

A voice, indeed, and it's now staring down history and shouting, "Outta the way, eh!"

How else to explain it? How else to understand that what happened Wednesday is what has been happening to this team for nearly two months.

"We've got something pretty good going on here," said Williams, who just won the Insert Historical Hockey Figure Here Award for understatement.

Wild enough that the game began with a first-period Kings goal by somebody named Colin Fraser. It was the fourth-liner's first goal of the postseason, and now the Kings have playoff goals from 16 different players. Honestly, I didn't even know they had 16 different players.

"Coach Sutter stands in there and tells us, 'It's going to take everybody,' and it always does," said Jordan Nolan, another member of that fourth line that stole the show.

So everything is going great for the Kings, and the red-clad crowd is weakening, and then, wilder still, the Devils scored the only way they could seemingly score against impenetrable Jonathan Quick — the Kings scored for them, on a deflection off Slava Voynov's shoulder.