The Los Angeles Kings are 9-0 on the road in the 2012 playoffs and have won 11 consecutive postseason contests away from home. They’ve only lost two games overall in the playoffs. During much of those matches, the games weren’t all that close.
Even for a team that came in with a humble eighth seed, the Kings must be brimming with confidence. Head coach Darryl Sutter is presented with an enviable challenge, but a challenge nonetheless: to keep this mostly-young team from getting overconfident. Perhaps it explains his almost hilariously simplistic take on their 2-1 OTroad victory in Game 1, then.
Question: Why do you think your team is so good on the road?
Sutter: “We won one on the road now. (The) season started today, tonight.”
Sutter’s willfully incorrect math is another example of his folksy wisdom. Honestly, if I were in his shoes, I would definitely be nervous about players such as Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty believing their press clippings a little too much.
A ton of people picked the Kings to win the series - even video games tabbed Los Angeles - but Sutter is right to take a “we have a long way to go” approach.