1992–93 Los Angeles Kings season

Final standings

^[8]Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against
Note: Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.

Division Semifinals

The Kings qualified for the 1993 Stanley Cup playoffs by virtue of their third-place finish in the Smythe Division. In the Smythe Division Semifinals, the third-seeded Kings met the Calgary Flames, who had finished second in the Smythe Division during the regular season. Although Los Angeles was missing its best defenceman, Rob Blake, for Game 1 and team captain Wayne Gretzky suffered a charley horse and left midway through the contest, the Kings fired on all cylinders in a 6–3 win at the Olympic Saddledome. Defenceman Darryl Sydor scored on a pass from behind the net by Gretzky only 16 seconds into the game, and Jimmy Carson netted two power play goals.^[9] However, Calgary stormed back in Game 2, with their ace defensive centre Joel Otto scoring twice, once at even-strength and once short-handed, as part of an unanswered five-goal outburst in the second period en route to a 9–4 Flames victory.^[10] The series shifted to California for Game 3, where undisciplined play by the Kings and two goals by the Flames' Theoren Fleury, one on the power play and one shorthanded, allowed Calgary to claim a 5–2 win.^[11][12] Feeling he needed to shake up his team, Kings head coach Barry Melrose opted to start backup goaltender Robb Stauber, a playoff rookie, over usual starter Kelly Hrudey for Game 4. Stauber responded, stopping 28 of 29 Calgary shots, while Alexei Zhitnik, Warren Rychel, and Pat Conacher scored to give Los Angeles a 3–1 victory and a 2–2 series tie.^[13] After being held to five goals over the previous two games, the Kings' offense burst forth in Game 5, with Gretzky, Luc Robitaille, Tomas Sandström, and Tony Granato, all heretofore dormant, erupting for a combined five goals and six assists in a 9–4 rout of the Flames, putting Los Angeles one win away from the second round.^[14] Not to be denied, the Kings' onslaught continued in Game 6, as Sandström's two goals, Jari Kurri's goal and three assists, and Gretzky's goal and two assists led to a decisive 9–6 victory and a 4–2 series win, the team's first playoff series triumph since 1991. Los Angeles set a club playoff record by scoring 33 goals in six games, surpassing their previous mark of 29 goals in a series.^[15]

Division Finals

In the Smythe Division Finals, the Kings' opponents were the Vancouver Canucks, who had finished in first place in the Smythe Division during the regular season and upended the fourth-place Winnipeg Jets in six games in the other Smythe Division Semifinal series. The Canucks, who had won seven of nine regular-season games against Los Angeles, continued their success with a 5–2 victory in Game 1, as Dana Murzyn, Gerald Diduck, and Dave Babych – three defencemen not known for their offensive prowess – all scored for Vancouver.^[16] Game 5 in Vancouver was the first in the series to not be a blowout; instead, it was a close, tense affair that proved to be the longest playoff game in team history to that point. The Kings had a 2–1 lead after one period on goals by Gretzky and Kurri, but the Canucks tied the score at 3–3 after two periods thanks to markers by Petr Nedved and Trevor Linden. After a scoreless third period, the game went to double overtime where, after two failed wraparound attempts by Robitaille, the puck went to Gary Shuchuk at the crease, who flicked it past Vancouver goaltender Kirk McLean at 6:31 to win the game for the Kings, 4–3, and put them one victory away from the Conference Finals.^[17]

Conference Finals

In the Campbell Conference Finals, the Kings faced the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had finished in third place in the Norris Division during the regular season and defeated the Detroit Red Wings and St. Louis Blues, both in seven games, in the Division Semifinals and Division Finals, respectively. The Maple Leafs had last won the Stanley Cup in 1967 and had not even reached the Stanley Cup Final since that year.^[18][19] Their 1993 Conference Finals appearance was the furthest the franchise had advanced in the playoffs since 1978.^[20] There had been some animosity between the clubs heading into the series, as Toronto centre Doug Gilmour had been suspended for eight days for slashing and breaking the arm of the Kings' Tomas Sandström during a regular-season game on November 21.^[21]

The Maple Leafs opened the series with a 4–1 victory at home in Game 1, with Gilmour, the playoffs' leading scorer, recording two goals and two assists. However, the contest was marred by a hit on Gilmour by Kings defenceman Marty McSorley late in the game. Leaf captain Wendel Clark immediately fought McSorley, while Toronto defenceman Todd Gill brawled with Los Angeles forward Dave Taylor. Leafs head coach Pat Burns, who believed McSorley's hit on Gilmour was a deliberate attack ordered by the Los Angeles coaching staff, angrily confronted Kings head coach Barry Melrose, while Toronto fans threw debris on the ice.^[22] McSorley estimated that over 100 threats were called into his hotel room after the game.^[23] Sandström's goal off a Wayne Gretzky pass with 7:40 remaining allowed Los Angeles to tie the series with a 3–2 win in Game 2 before the teams headed to the Great Western Forum for Games 3 and 4.^[24] The Kings took Game 3 by a 4–2 score aided by short-handed goals from Taylor and Jari Kurri,^[25] but Toronto displayed a dominant defensive effort in Game 4, as goals by Bob Rouse and rookie Mike Eastwood in the first 6:30 sparked the Maple Leafs to a 4–2 win of their own to tie the series at 2–2.^[26] In Game 5, Glenn Anderson scored the winning goal in overtime off his own rebound to give Toronto a 3–2 victory, putting them one win away from their first Finals appearance in 26 years.^[27] In the aftermath of the game, Bob McKenzie, writing in the Toronto Star, angered Gretzky by opining that the Kings' captain looked "as though he were skating with a piano on his back."^[28] Before Game 6 in Los Angeles, Gretzky told his agent, Mike Barnett, "The piano man still has a tune to play."^[29]

Game 6, a back-and-forth affair, would prove the most controversial of the series. Clark gave Toronto a 2–1 lead early in the second period, but the Kings went ahead 4–2 on three power play goals by McSorley, Darryl Sydor, and Luc Robitaille. The Leafs stormed back in the third period, with Clark scoring two more goals to complete a hat trick and tie the game at 4–4; the tying goal came with just 81 seconds left, sending the contest into overtime.^[30] With 13 seconds left in regulation, Anderson received a boarding penalty, allowing Los Angeles to begin overtime on a power play. During the overtime period, with the Kings in the Toronto end, Gretzky's stick caught Gilmour on the chin, drawing blood. Under the rules in place at the time, the play would have resulted in a five-minute major penalty. However, after consulting with linesmen Ron Finn and Kevin Collins, referee Kerry Fraser decided against penalizing Gretzky, reasoning he did not see the play. Gretzky scored the overtime winner off the very next faceoff, handing Los Angeles a 5–4 win and tying the series at three games apiece.^[31]

The winner of the deciding seventh game in Toronto would determine the Campbell Conference representative in the 1993 Stanley Cup Final. At 9:48 of the first period, Gretzky opened the scoring with a short-handed goal off a 2-on-1 rush with McSorley, then picked up an assist when Sandström scored off a Gretzky pass in the slot to give the Kings a 2–0 lead. The Maple Leafs tied the game in the second period on goals by Clark and Anderson, but just past the midway point of the period, Gretzky scored his second goal of the contest when he took a backhand pass from Sandström and, after Toronto defenceman Kent Manderville went for the puck but missed, moved to the high slot and slapped the puck past Leaf goaltender Felix Potvin for a 3–2 Los Angeles lead. The Maple Leafs clawed back to tie the game at 3–3 early in the third period on Clark's second goal of the night. However, with 3:51 left, the Kings' Alexei Zhitnik took a shot that Rouse partially blocked and redirected to Mike Donnelly, who scored into an empty net to give Los Angeles a 4–3 advantage. Only 37 seconds later, Gretzky completed a hat trick and capped a four-point effort when, chased by Gill, he circled behind Potvin and banked the puck off the skate of Leafs defenceman Dave Ellett and into the net; the goal, which Gretzky called a "fluke", gave the Kings a 5–3 lead. Though Ellett scored with 1:07 remaining to cut the Kings' lead to one goal, Los Angeles held on for a 5–4 victory and advanced to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in team history. Gretzky later called Game 7 the greatest game he had ever played.^[32][33][34]

Stanley Cup Final

The Kings' opponents in the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, the Montreal Canadiens, had finished third in the Prince of Wales Conference's Adams Division during the regular season. They had defeated their provincial rivals, the Quebec Nordiques, in six games in the Division Semifinals and swept the Buffalo Sabres four straight in the Division Finals before besting the New York Islanders in five games in the Wales Conference Finals. Prior to the series, Los Angeles coach Barry Melrose suggested that the Canadiens were a team that "hasn't been tested," although Montreal had lost the first two games of their first-round series to the Nordiques before rebounding to win 11 consecutive games, tying an NHL record.^[35]

Still, the Canadiens had had eight days off since eliminating the Islanders, and the Kings took advantage of their lethargy in a 4–1 victory in Game 1 at the Montreal Forum. Montreal native Luc Robitaille scored twice on the power play, and Wayne Gretzky had a hand in all four Los Angeles goals, scoring one himself and assisting on the other three. The lone Canadiens goal came at 18:09 of the first period when Gretzky scored on his own net trying to break up a pass by Montreal's Ed Ronan, who received credit for the goal.^[36]

The turning point in the series, however, came in Game 2. The Canadiens took a 1–0 lead on a first-period goal by defenceman Éric Desjardins, but the Kings tied the score in the second period on a short-handed goal from Dave Taylor, then went in front 2–1 when Pat Conacher scored with 11:28 left in the third period. During a stoppage in play with 1:45 remaining, Montreal head coach Jacques Demers requested that referee Kerry Fraser measure the curve on the blade of Los Angeles defenceman Marty McSorley's stick. After measuring the curve, Fraser ruled McSorley's stick illegal and assessed him a minor penalty. Demers then pulled goaltender Patrick Roy for an extra attacker, giving the Canadiens a 6-on-4 power play. Desjardins scored his second goal of the game off a Vincent Damphousse pass with 1:13 left in regulation to tie the score at 2–2, sending the contest into overtime. Only 51 seconds into the extra period, Montreal's Benoît Brunet picked up a missed Desjardins slap shot and passed it back to Desjardins, who fired another shot past Kings goaltender Kelly Hrudey to win the game for the Canadiens, 3–2, and tie the series at 1–1. Desjardins became the first defenceman to ever score a hat trick in the Stanley Cup Final.^[37][38][39]

The series shifted to Los Angeles for the third and fourth games. By early in the second period of Game 3, the Canadiens had a 3–0 lead over the Kings, thanks to goals by Brian Bellows, Gilbert Dionne, and Mathieu Schneider, the latter two goals coming 21 seconds apart. However, Los Angeles received an emotional lift from a Mark Hardy hit on Mike Keane, and the team responded with goals from Robitaille, Tony Granato, and Gretzky to tie the game at 3–3. With 12.9 seconds left before the game went into overtime, Kings coach Melrose argued for a penalty shot, saying that Montreal captain Guy Carbonneau closed his hand on the puck in the goal crease, but referee Terry Gregson ruled that the puck was caught in Carbonneau's equipment instead. Only 34 seconds into overtime, John LeClair buried the puck past Hrudey to give the Canadiens a 4–3 win and a 2–1 series lead.^[40][41] In the fourth game, Montreal took a 2–0 lead over the Kings on a first-period Kirk Muller goal and a power-play goal by Damphousse, but Los Angeles tied the score on a second-period Mike Donnelly goal off his own rebound and a power-play goal from McSorley, who took a pass from Gretzky from behind the net. The game again went to overtime, where LeClair scored his second consecutive sudden-death winner at 14:37 of the extra period for a 3–2 Canadiens victory and a 3–1 advantage in the series. It was the third straight overtime win for Montreal and their tenth consecutive overtime victory in the playoffs; Canadiens head coach Demers opined of the overtime winning streak that it was "possibly a record that will never be beaten."^[42]

The series went back to Montreal for Game 5, which Red Fisher, the Canadiens' beat writer for the Montreal Gazette, called the team's best of the playoffs, as the Canadiens held the tiring and demoralized Kings to just 14 shots in the first two periods, and only 19 overall in the game. After Montreal took a 1–0 lead in the first period on a Paul DiPietro goal, McSorley tied the game at 2:40 of the second period by sending a wrist shot from the slot past Roy that richocheted off both goal posts. However, on the very next shift, the Canadiens regained the lead when Muller buried a loose puck past Hrudey following a failed wraparound attempt by Damphousse. Stéphan Lebeau added a power-play goal at 11:31 of the second period to give Montreal a 3–1 advantage, and DiPietro scored his second goal of the contest at 12:06 of the third period to put the game out of reach. The Canadiens held on for a 4–1 victory and clinched their 24th Stanley Cup championship with a 4–1 series win. Roy was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the second time in his career.^[43][44][45]

Regular season

Playoffs

Skaters

Goaltending

† Denotes player spent time with another team before joining the Kings. Stats reflect time with the Kings only.
‡ Denotes player was traded mid-season. Stats reflect time with the Kings only.

Trades

Free agent signings

Free agents lost

Waivers

Lost in expansion draft