LOS ANGELES -- It was an exhausting run. Three Game 7s and one double overtime were needed to clinch the Stanley Cup. Kings captain Dustin Brown was at a loss for words to describe the feeling.
“I’m emotionally spent like I’ve never been before,” he said, with the world’s best trophy being passed behind him.
And they can’t wait to try it again. The Kings have won two of the past three Stanley Cups and want more.
“We’re going to try. We’re definitely going to try,” Kings forward Anze Kopitar said on the ice. “I don’t think the core guys are going anywhere anytime soon, we’re going to strive towards that.”
They’ll be in the mix, for sure, but repeating in the salary-cap era is all but impossible. Nobody has done it yet. That’s why Los Angeles isn't No. 1 in our earliest of looks at the 2015 Stanley Cup favorites:
Chicago came impressively close to becoming the first repeat winner of the NHL salary-cap era. If the Blackhawks had beaten the Kings in overtime of the Western Conference finals, they would have entered the finals as heavy favorites over the Rangers.
Chicago and Los Angeles are the two best teams in the league, and L.A. gets bumped down a couple of notches on this list only because it’s all but impossible to repeat in today’s NHL.