Better to be King for a Day Than Schmuck For A Lifetime

Congrats to the Kings for a truly remarkable run through the playoffs. I’m especially happy for Darryl Sutter, a brilliant and now no longer to be underrated coach, although I wish he could have saved one of those six goals for Game 6 or 7 in 2004. One one level, it’s odd that this kind of run by an 8 seed — not squeaking through rounds but annihilating the top three seeds in the conference — but on another level it makes sense, since I think they had more talent than St. Louis or Phoenix and don’t have a significantly less impressive roster than Vancouver. If Lombardi can make the cap work and Sutter can avoid getting too cranky this team is going to be formidable for a while.

Also, as an addition to the recent discussion about the idiocy about labeling players as “Clutch” or “Not Clutch,” I note that as recently as two months ago the consensus among hockey writers was that Mike Richards and Jeff Carter fell into the latter category. Lombardi ignoring these stupid labels is what allowed him to build a championship team; acquiring Carter for a Carl’s Jr. gift certificate was crucial to setting up this run.