Dream final

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Coyote Shane Doan (left) and King Dustin Brown engage in a battle between captains. (MARK J. TERRILL / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES)

THE WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL

PHOENIX COYOTES vs. LOS ANGELES KINGS

Game 1: Sunday in Glendale, Ariz., 7 p.m.

TV: TSN, RDS, NBC Sports Network.

Head to head: The two teams split the six-game season series 3-3.

The Coyotes: 42-27-13 in regular season; 3rd seed in the West. Eliminated Chicago 4-2 in Round 1 and Nashville 4-1 in Round 2.

The Kings: 40-27-15 in regular season; 8th seed in the West. Knocked off Vancouver 4-1 in Round 1 and St. Louis 4-0 in Round 2.

Why the Coyotes will win: There's nothing flashy about Phoenix's game: goaltender Mike Smith -- who has been out of this world through two rounds with a 1.77 goals-against-average and a .948 save percentage -- refers to their blueprint as "Coyote Ugly." OK, so he gets style points for creativity, but zero in originality. But the term does fit perfectly. Including a five-game win streak to end the regular season and capture the Pacific Division, the Coyotes are on a 13-3 run and playing like battle-tested warriors. Phoenix has defined the term "scoring by committee" in the postseason, with 10 forwards finding the net, but it's the growth of emerging stars like defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larson, just 20, that has stabilized a corps that already featured unheralded star Keith Yandle and includes vets like Rostislav Klesla, Michal Rozsival, Derek Morris and Adrian Aucoin.

The main concern is this: Their power play is just 5-for-31 in the postseason and those numbers, given the predictions for another low-scoring series, could be critical.

Why the Kings will win: Darryl Sutter has pushed all the right buttons and has his crew understanding roles and, perhaps more importantly, just how deep the buy-in has to be in the post-season. The Kings are getting huge play from their "second" line of Mike Richards, Jeff Carter and Dustin Penner but, just like the Coyotes, it's their last line of defence that has been dominant. Goaltender Jonathan Quick sports a teeny-tiny 1.55 goals-against average with a gaudy .959 save percentage. It's not so much the numbers that provide the Kings their backbone, it's the growing belief that in Quick they are virtually unbeatable. Just as impressive is Sutter's work with Olympian Drew Doughty, whose regular season was so-so, but whose playoffs have been phenomenal. He's averaging more than 25 minutes per game, has six points and is a plus-7 this spring.

What also jumps out at you about the Kings is their depth and their size, especially up front. This is a team that can grind an opponent down and it's resulting in boosting an attack that is now averaging a NHL-best three goals per game in the playoffs -- this from a squad that finished 29th in goals during the regular season.

The Kings' penalty-killing unit has been the most dominant special-teams bunch in the post-season, with four short-handed goals in nine games. If they can jump-start their ineffective power play, the Kings could be in the bid dance for the first time in almost two decades.

Tim Campbell picks: Kings in six.

Gary Lawless picks: Los Angeles in six.

Ed Tait picks: Los Angeles in seven.

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Somebody, somewhere will claim to have seen this coming. Maybe it came to them in a dream, was revealed in their tea leaves or via a message from God.

And if they happened to put significant money on the Los Angeles Kings and Phoenix Coyotes meeting in the NHL's Western Conference Final, it's a good bet they are now sipping those fancy umbrella-drinks while chillin' on their brand-spanking-new yacht.

Yes, the Kings-Coyotes match-up -- which showcases the two squads with the sixth and eighth-best regular-season records in the West -- is so far off script even the dreamers in Hollywood would have rejected the premise as too far-fetched at the beginning of April.

But here these two sides are after having KO'd pre-playoff favourites like the Vancouver Canucks, the President's Trophy winners, the upstart St. Louis Blues -- tied for the second-best record in the NHL -- the veteran Detroit Red Wings, the Chicago Blackhawks and their 101-point regular season and the once-trendy pick to represent the West, the Nashville Predators.

And so these two teams which are so similar on the ice -- particularly with their stellar goaltending anchoring a defensive commitment and deep, deep rosters -- also have this in common: Nobody expected them to be here in this battle -- the long shot Kings vs. the orphaned Coyotes.

There's more to that, too. The Coyotes, as long-serving Winnipeg Jets fans can attest, have never been to the third round of the playoffs. And the Kings haven't played this late into the spring in 19 years, not since Wayne Gretzky & Co. fell to the Montreal Canadiens in the 1993 Stanley Cup final.

Not surprisingly, given where they have come from, both teams were adopting the underdog tag heading into their series which opens Sunday night in Arizona.

"I think a lot of people always view us as a smaller-market team that's in the hunt but nobody views us as a contender," said Coyotes' head coach Dave Tippett in a conference call. "I look at our game as kind of evolved over the last part of the regular season and into the playoffs, where we have the confidence we can beat anybody. We recognized that we'll probably always be looked at as the underdog, but hasn't changed for us in about the last three years, so we're comfortable in that mode."

Added Kings' coach Darryl Sutter: "Phoenix won the division. We finished close to them. It doesn't really matter. They get the extra game at home. That makes them the favourite."

Settle in, hockey fans, for this will be a battle where defensive blueprints are adhered to religiously, the netminders are dominant and goals are scarce.

"There's usually a defining play, a defining situation in the game that determines the outcome," Tippett told The Los Angeles Times. "It might be a great save, a power play, an unfortunate mistake. I think you're going to see closely contested games and the team that has the ability to capitalize on an event, whether good or bad, sometimes those are the difference-makers in the game.

"I think it should be a great series. I think it's great for both franchises. Lots of excitement, lots of notoriety for the game in both cities."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 12, 2012 C1