If past performance is any indication, the Los Angeles Kings will win the Stanley Cup on Saturday night when they take on the New Jersey Devils in the fifth game of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals at the Prudential Center in Newark. After all, the Kings have not required more than five games to win a series throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and both their first-round win over the Vancouver Canucks and their victory over the Phoenix Coyotes in the Western Conference Finals followed the same script: wins by the Kings in the first three games, a Game 4 loss, and an overtime win on the road in Game 5 to clinch the series.
This is not news. It's also not the best way to look at Saturday night's game.
With the exception of Game 3 on Monday, every game of the series has been closely contested, with overtime in the first two games of the series and a Game 4 that was tied after two periods before the Devils took control in the final 20 minutes. While patterns from the previous rounds may have the Kings finishing off the Devils in New Jersey on Saturday night, the character of the games suggests that it's by no means a certainty.
Of course, history doesn't change because the Devils won one game. No team has come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the Stanley Cup since the Toronto Maple Leafs did it in 1942 (and, as Doc Emrick helpfully pointed out during Game 3, that only happened after Red Wings coach Jack Adams was suspended for the remainder of the series). However, the Devils aren't concerned with winning three games right now. They're worried about winning one.
All indications are that the Devils are quite capable of doing that. Whether they will or not won't be clear until Saturday night.
