Dustin Brown had to wait a long time for his kiss from the boss’s wife.
A lockout that ate nearly half of the 2012–13 NHL season seriously delayed the final Hollywood party thrown in honour of the Los Angeles Kings’ 2012 championship run. But on Jan. 19, 2013, Nancy Anschutz—wife of team owner Philip Anschutz—stood at centre ice and handed each King a jewelry box containing the first Stanley Cup rings ever made by Tiffany and Co. Brown, being the captain and all, even got a peck on the cheek.
Also receiving the players were Tim Leiweke, then CEO of the Anschutz Entertainment Group; Luc Robitaille, team legend and president of business operations; and Dean Lombardi, the GM whose hard work allowed for the whole scene.
The ceremony culminated with a raucous banner-raising set to those staple organ chords prompting fans to chant, “Let’s go Kings!” As the new decoration reached its desired height, master of ceremonies and team play-by-play man Bob Miller exclaimed, “Let’s get this season going, and let’s do it again!”
Maybe that was all the Chicago Blackhawks could take.
Holed up in the visitors’ dressing room while the rest of the rink sounded like one giant kazoo, a team just a couple years removed from its own celebration was ready to charge.
“Something like 40 seconds after we got our rings and they finished raising the banner, Chicago was on a five-on-three power play,” recalls Mike Futa, then the Kings’ director of amateur scouting. “I think everybody on the ice must have touched it six times before they scored. You’re like, ‘I guess we’re back at it.’ It was the reality of starting over.”
More NHL on Sportsnet:
Subscribe: Rogers GameCentre Live
Rogers Hometown Hockey | Broadcast Schedule
Sportsnet Fantasy Hockey
The 5–2 shellacking Chicago laid on L.A. that night actually started 3:41 into the first period with Patrick Kane’s man-advantage marker. It was the opening salvo in what’s become a riveting back-and-forth battle.
Four months after crashing the Kings’ ring ceremony, the Blackhawks got a double-overtime winner from Kane in game five of the Western Conference final to eliminate L.A. en route to their second Cup in four seasons. A year later, Kings defenceman Alec Martinez netted a game-seven, extra-time marker that ended Chicago’s hopes in one of the best conference final series ever contested. Soon Martinez was scoring another OT winner to put the Kings back on top of the hockey world.
Now, as both teams target a third championship with the same core players, the greatest obstacle in the hunt for unquestioned dynasty status remains each other. They’re two heavyweights cresting at the same moment, burdened with the knowledge that the slightest slip—on the ice or in the front office—could put them back on the mat. Those unforgiving conditions have squeezed the most out of both sides, highlighting the clubs’ shared strengths and defining differences.
This past summer, Futa made the leap from the scouting department to vice-president of hockey operations and director of player personnel.
Beyond the work ethic required to get to where he is, a couple other things keep Futa moving. His direct boss, Lombardi, has established an organizational ethic in which every opinion is considered, and it’s nice to reward that kind of trust. But often, the most inspiring thing for Futa is watching his own team play. In 2012, he witnessed L.A. become the first eighth seed to claim the Cup, charging out to 3–0 leads in all four series. Last spring, however, really tested the Kings’ mettle.
L.A. famously stormed back from an 0–3 hole versus the San Jose Sharks in round one, then won games six and seven versus another California rival, the Anaheim Ducks, in the Pacific Division final. After watching a 3–1 series lead against the Blackhawks evaporate, L.A.—playing in enemy territory—tied game seven in the third period before the legend of Martinez was born in overtime. It was really something to behold.
“It kind of drives you those days you’re pushing yourself on the road [scouting] and maybe feeling sorry about how much time you’re spending in a hotel,” says Futa. “But you think about the sacrifice that group made—it’s kind of got to push you to another level.”
Where Futa and the Kings have directed that energy is into drafting and development. Every pro sports team with a logo talks about the significance of those two Ds, but behind closed doors owners get impatient, GMs worry about losing their jobs and shortcuts are taken. That hasn’t been the case in L.A. since Lombardi was named GM in 2006. And beyond his stated mandate of building internally with an emphasis on the blueline, Lombardi had to change a league-wide mindset that Futa was also familiar with when he joined the team in 2007.
“If people want to win Cups, they go to Detroit,” Futa says. “If they want to get a tan and hang out on the beach, they go to L.A. That was the culture that had to change, and it had to change from within.”
Reforming the organization meant becoming maniacal about uncovering the best ways to cultivate quality hockey players.
Futa says it’s a process of figuring out exactly what you can and can’t teach a prospect. One of the completely unglamorous things the Kings honed in on was protecting the puck, a point of emphasis with every player in the system. The result is a squad that’s consistently among the NHL’s best in terms of possession.
“It’s something they’ve broken down into a science,” Futa says of the player-development department.
That attention to detail is part of the reason why, during its 2012 Cup run, L.A. was able to insert bottom-six forwards Jordan Nolan and Dwight King into the lineup after both spent the majority of the season with the AHL’s Manchester Monarchs.
Two years later, it was a pair of more skilled players—Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli—who became serious difference-makers in the post-season. Whether it was King and Nolan grinding out tough fourth-line shifts or Toffoli and Pearson trying to create some scoring magic with centre Jeff Carter, each of them could be trusted not to turn the puck over. When you’re operating with no margin for error, small things like that make all the difference.
It’s certainly the kind of thing Mark Kelley would notice. One of the more unlikely products of the Kings-Hawks rivalry is the burgeoning friendship between Futa and Kelley, Chicago’s director of amateur scouting. Futa didn’t know Kelley well when the Hawks won their 2010 championship, but when the two crossed paths, he asked Kelley about his day with the Cup.
A couple years later, roles were reversed and it was Kelley telling Futa to enjoy his 24 hours with the silver mug. The communication has become more frequent over time and the two men enjoy talking shop—without discussing the secret sauce, naturally. When L.A. won the Cup last June, it was again Kelley’s turn to tip his cap at a worthy opponent.
“He sent me a text saying, ‘I’m a big fan of your work,’” Futa says. “And it was really one of the best things a peer could say because they’re so good and it’s such a humbling business.”
Making the Blackhawks-Kings matchup all the more intriguing is the fact that the two teams are a study in contrasts. In broad terms, Chicago is a high-flying outfit that relies on speed and skill to befuddle opponents. And while the Kings are probably quicker and more talented than people recognize, their overarching identity is of big-bodied players who battle for every inch and grind other clubs into dust.
If the two teams really were boxers, the Blackhawks would be Muhammad Ali, gliding around the ring and pumping rapid-fire jabs at the slightest opportunity. L.A. would be Joe Frazier, moving straight ahead with a left hook designed to crack ribs.
“It’s really two teams that expose the other,” Kelley says.
Determining who winds up taking a hard look in the mirror has a lot to do with the support staff.
Chicago knows it can count on crunch-time magic from Kane and two-way dominance from Jonathan Toews, just as L.A. knows Anze Kopitar can log all the tough minutes and Drew Doughty will move around the ice like a hummingbird. The real trick is filling out the roster with guys who can make an impact when the stars are catching their breath.
In the 2013 West final, Chicago still had speedsters Viktor Stalberg, Michael Frolik and Dave Bolland in its bottom-six forward fold. That helped the Hawks slip past an L.A. team that couldn’t quite keep up.
Last year, not only was Chicago without those players because of salary cap–minded moves, but the Kings had picked up their pace with the emergence of Toffoli and Pearson, not to mention the trade-deadline addition of Marian Gaborik. That was enough to tip the balance in their favour.
The next youngster who could tip it back for Chicago is 2012 first-rounder Teuvo Teravainen, a darting forward who captained Finland’s gold-medal entry at the most recent World Junior Championship.
Their different styles mean L.A. and Chicago don’t always refer to the same blueprint, but they’re both trying to find guys who can supplement an enviable nucleus of players.
“The two armies, we march differently, but it works,” Kelley says.
Still, there’s undeniable overlap in the story of each team’s rise. Nearly a decade-long stretch of terrible play in Chicago culminated with the Hawks drafting Toews third overall in 2006 and Kane with the first selection the following year. In 2008, the Kings bottomed out and were thrilled to select Doughty second overall.
“When you suck, you want to have a year where there’s a prize for sucking,” Futa says.
Stan Bowman took over the Blackhawks’ GM reins from Dale Tallon in 2009 and inherited some high-quality players. That said, the 2013 Cup-winning Blackhawks featured a lot of turnover from the 2010 outfit, a credit to Bowman’s handiwork.
Meanwhile, when Lombardi came into the Kings family in ’06, Brown was already on the roster and both Kopitar and goalie Jonathan Quick were in the pipeline. But it’s hard to imagine Tinseltown would be as champagne-soaked without a trio of massive moves by the current GM.
In the summer of 2011, Lombardi parted with prized youngsters Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds to get Mike Richards from the Philadelphia Flyers. Later that year, he reunited former Flyers buddies Richards and Carter when he got the latter in a deadline deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Lombardi was dialing the same Ohio area code again last March when he plucked Gaborik from the Jackets.
Given how things have turned out—Futa says Carter could easily be the team’s captain and Gaborik gleefully signed a seven-year deal in the off-season to stay in L.A. after leading the playoffs with 14 goals—it’s easy to forget that people questioned the commitment level of both players before they blended seamlessly with the Kings.
It’s also worth noting that, prior to the Richards trade, Lombardi was sometimes seen as loath to part with prospects, something that can be required to get a team over the hump. Suffice it to say that assessment has been robbed of all credibility.
“It’s nice to know you’ve got someone at the top who will pull the trigger on deals that give you a chance to win every year,” Futa says.
Any future Kings acquisition would land in L.A. fully aware it’s now a place you go to win Cups. Just like Chicago, only different.