Wrapping up the weekend NHL action, with the Kings taking a lead in the Conference Finals and the Rangers getting there with their Game Seven win against Washington Saturday night. Prince Shembo Falcons Jersey . KINGS OPEN WITH A WINThe Los Angeles Kings continued their playoff road dominance, beating the Phoenix Coyotes 4-2 in Game One of the Western Conference Final. It was the Kings sixth straight road win in the playoffs and they launched a season-high 48 shots on the Coyotes net, while allowing a typical 27 shots against. Dustin Brown, who has been a force for the Kings throughout the playoffs, led the way with a goal, an assist and seven shots on goal. He tied teammate Trevor Lewis with a team-high six hits as well. Coyotes RW Shane Doan was the games top hitter with seven. Rookie winger Dwight King scored a pair of goals for Los Angeles, while Lewis also contributed a pair of assists. Getting offensive contributions from King and Lewis definitely sets the Kings ahead of expectations for the night. C Anze Kopitar was dominant for the Kings too, scoring a goal and registering a plus-2 rating, but if you are inclined to dig into more advanced metrics, he also had a plus-27 Corsi (which includes hits, blocked shots and missed shots -- denoting territorial advantage), according to www.timeonice.com. Coyotes D Derek Morris managed to score a goal from centre ice on his way to scoring two points and finishing with a plus-2 rating. Morris has had multiple points and a multiple plus rating twice total in the last three seasons. On the other hand, it was a rough night for Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who was minus-3 for only the second time in his career, playing more than 24 minutes and matched up primarily against the Brown, Kopitar, Justin Williams line (per www.timeonice.com). If the Kings are going to be able to control the territorial play as much as they did in Game One, the Coyotes are going to need a superhuman effort from Mike Smith because Jonathan Quick (Morris goal aside) has been a crucial factor in the L.A. Kings success this season. RANGERS ADVANCEWith the season on the line for the New York Rangers, they received big contributions from young players to take Game Seven against the Washington Capitals, 2-1, earning a spot in the Eastern Conference Final. Rangers rookie LW Carl Hagelin, who hadnt scored a point since the first game of the postseason (a span of 13 games, including his three-game suspension in Round One), picked up assists on both Rangers goals. Defenceman Michael Del Zotto had a goal and an assist in the deciding game and also recorded a game-high eight hits. Del Zotto had six points in the series, tying him with Brad Richards, one point behind team leader Marian Gaborik, who had seven points. Gaborik also led all Rangers shooters with 28 shots on goal. On the other side, there will be a certain amount of blame pinned on Alexander Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom et al, the skilled forwards who played big minutes in Game Seven, when the Capitals needed them, but its difficult to cast blame for not being productive in a road game, facing difficult matchups (the Dan Girardi-Ryan McDonagh defence tandem, most notably), particularly when their ice time fluctuated wildly throughout the series. With subpar production from Ovechkin and Backstrom (four points apiece in seven games), the Capitals leading scorer in the series was LW Jason Chimera, who had five points. Alexander Semin recorded one assist in his last nine playoff games, which obviously encompasses the entire series against the Rangers. As it turned out, though, the Capitals did miss Jay Beagle, the checking centre who played 11:51 per game during the regular season, but had averaged 20:38 per game in the first five games against the Rangers. Rookie G Braden Holtby kept the Capitals in the series right to the end, posting a .929 save percentage, but Rangers stalwart Henrik Lundqvist did his part too, with a .927 save percentage. With the Rangers holding the territorial edge, that was enough to sway the series in the Blueshirts favour. Case in point, after the shots on goal were relatively close through the first four games of the series (margin was plus-4 in favour of Capitals after Game Four), the Rangers outshot the Capitals by 36 over last three games of the series. In small samples, its possible to win when getting outshot by a dozen shots per game, but thats not a long-term plan for success. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Josh Wilson Falcons Jersey . -- With Prince Fielder, Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus struggling at the plate, Texas manager Ron Washington enjoyed watching a couple of home runs from two of the few players in his lineup who were hitting . Sean Weatherspoon Falcons Jersey . Washington obtained right-hander Doug Fister from Detroit for infielder Steve Lombardozzi and left-handers Robbie Ray and Ian Krol on Monday.There is something singularly fascinating and unsettling about hockey fighters. And Darren Kramer is no exception. The man who had more hockey fights than anyone on Earth last season comes across as a polite, articulate teenager with a youthful look in his eye and yet still somehow mature for his age. Hes had the same girlfriend since he was 14 years old, is adored by his mother and father, his teammates and his coaches. His current one, Don Nachbaur of the Spokane Chiefs, calls him a role model. Last season, Darren Kramer dropped the gloves 47 times for the Chiefs in the Western Hockey League (46 regular season, one playoffs), more than 50 if you count his handful of fights in the Alberta Junior league before his call to Spokane. Hes managed to go from being a scrappy player in a Tier II junior league to an Ottawa Senators draft pick in the span of about nine months. Kramer says he loves the adrenaline that comes with a hockey fight, the roar of the crowd, the rush he gives his teammates by going a round with an opponent - be it right off the faceoff or in the heat of battle. To put his 46 regular season fights in perspective, consider that its 19 more than anyone in the NHL had last season, five short of the most anyone in junior hockey has ever had, and is twice as many as any other player in the WHL had last season. By comparison, no NHL player has had 40 in a season. Ever. "Its amazing as a raw quantity," says David Singer, who operates the popular website hockeyfights.com. "He is a kid who was clearly looking for scouts to notice what he is willing to bring to a team. A lot of guys bring that for a while but they fade out. But he just kept bringing the same thing night after night." Kramers fight card seems more than a little incongruous when you listen to his parents Hans and Hanna describe 19-year-old Darren as the perfect son - the kid who loves hockey like nothing else, who will stop at nothing to keep his dream alive, but has never been in a fight outside of an arena. Its then that you start to understand that while Darren Kramers story is all about fighting, it also has very little to do with fighting, or violence, or wanting to hurt another human being. Fighting to Darren Kramer is simply a tool, the thing he decided he must use to buy the time necessary to keep his hockey dream alive. If he was a baseball player, he might try to steal 100 bases. If he played basketball, hed probably try to master the art of three-point shooting. And if he played football, he might be a kicker, or a punter or a practice long snapping 500 times a day. Its anything to get noticed - to set him apart. Sam Baker Falcons Jersey. Find a job that not everyone is willing to do and do it better - or at least more willingly - than anyone else. Its no coincidence that Darren Kramer is also hobby inventor. He will happily describe his patent for a peanut butter jar that allows you to get to the bottom of the jar without messing up your hands, and has several other ideas in the works. And so when Kramer needed a way to prolong his hockey career as he moved into his mid-teens, he decided to reinvent himself, as a hockey fighter. He accepted the risks that many would not. Its not unlike the way race car drivers, or ski jumpers or any of those in a host of professions accept significant physical risk as part of the deal. How great those risks exactly are is the starting point of an emotional debate in hockey these days. We know that getting punched in the head can lead to concussions and brain damage, and we know that hockey fighters are prone to bare fists landing on skulls. We know that at least some former hockey fighters claim they developed anxiety rationalizing who they had to be on the ice with who they truly were off of it. We know there have been fighters whove had long careers and happy lives after hockey. And weve known some whove met tragic consequences and left behind some troubling unanswered questions. Darren Kramer knows all of that, has mulled it over, and then put it to the back of his mind, without dismissing it altogether. He wants to be a hockey player not a fighter. But that will depend on whether he can develop those other aspects of his game - his skating, his scoring touch, and whether he can prove hes hard to play against even when the gloves are on. Kramer is the Chiefs captain this season with five goals in five games - almost as many as he had all of last season. After youve met him, you want to root for him. To one day be able to say you, ‘knew him when. And you try not to think about the potential impact of all those fights. But you also fear for him. You worry about the potential toll on his body and soul, and that it isnt always going to be so easy for him to separate his on and off-ice personas. Using fighting to get to where you want to go in hockey is tough. Transforming yourself into a different kind of player, one wholl be known for more than a mind-boggling fight card, is even tougher. And no matter how often you tell yourself that Darren Kramer isnt a street fighter, that this simply part of the game of hockey, you also know the consequences can be very real. Fascinating. Unsettling. Indeed. ' ' '
