LOS ANGELES - The clock had slipped past midnight back in New York, meaning the Rangers' season and magical playoff run ended in crushing fashion on the 20-year anniversary of their most glorious moment.
Two decades after Mark Messier and the Blueshirts finally halted their 54-year championship drought, the Rangers flushed yet another lead and dropped their third overtime game of the Stanley Cup Final. Alec Martinez's rebound goal 14:43 into double-OT finally finished off the Rangers and sent them into the summer with a crushing, season-ending 3-2 loss Friday night into Saturday morning in Game 5 at Staples Center.
Martinez's goal was the first overtime Cup winner by a home team since Bob Nystrom of the Islanders in 1980.
The Kings, in hoisting the Cup for the second time in three years, were hardly the superior team with all three games here requiring play beyond regulation. LA also took Game 3 on the strength of three bad-bounce goals and the stellar play of goalie Jonathan Quick, while Lundqvist and the Rangers finally got some self-described 'puck luck' of their own in avoiding a sweep and extending the series with their lone win Wednesday night at the Garden.
Ryan McDonagh clanked the post on a power play nearly five minutes into a scintillating first OT session for the Rangers, while LA's Tyler Toffoli rang the crossbar about eight minutes later. Both goalies also made multiple acrobatic stops to force a fifth period, ending with Quick denying a Chris Kreider breakaway - just like in Game 2 - in the final minute.
The second OT was more of the same, with redirections by Jeff Carter and Mats Zuccarello each finding posts, while Rick Nash's attempt at an open cage was sticked away by Kings defenseman Voynov.
But Lundqvist, who made 32 of his 48 saves in the third period and the two overtimes, couldn't corral Martinez's rebound of Toffoli's shot with 5:17 left in the second OT for his and the Rangers' first loss in six elimination games this spring.
This marked the first time that two games in the Final required at least two overtimes since the 2000 series between Dallas and the Devils.
Late special-teams goals less than four minutes apart in the middle period by Chris Kreider and Brian Boyle - the latter a ridiculously placed shorthanded blast in the final 30 seconds - offset an early score by Justin Williams and enabled the Rangers to nurse a 2-1 lead into the third period for the second consecutive game.
But 17 seconds after Mats Zuccarello was penalized for tripping in the third, old friend Marian Gaborik netted the equalizer - and his league-high 13th goal of the playoffs - with a rebound stuffer at 7:56.
Lundqvist and Derick Brassard had stated between victories that the pressure in this series suddenly had switched to their opponents, but the battle-tested Kings - seeking their second Cup title in three years - had been alternating between mild annoyance and defiance since dropping Game 4.
Williams called the Rangers' references to the overdue 'puck luck' that went their way in Game 4 - including two pucks swept off Lundqvist's goal line - 'a cop out.' Drew Doughty added Friday that the Kings 'want to win this game more than them, there's no doubt about that.'
The Rangers obviously disputed that notion; their 25 regular-season road wins also marked the most in the Eastern Conference, one behind Colorado in the NHL. They had won six additional games away from MSG this postseason, before blowing two-goal leads in each of the first two games at Staples Center, losing Games 1 and 2 in overtime and double-OT, respectively.
'I think we're due for a win in this building,' Martin St. Louis said.
After hurling a 15-1 shot barrage without solving Lundqvist or his snowy goal line in the third period of Game 4, the Kings managed the first five shots Friday night. Williams opened the scoring with his ninth of the postseason - more than any Ranger - barely six minutes in.
The Kings were permitted several rebound whacks before Williams finally scooted a low backhander past a screened Lundqvist.
Brad Richards, playing again on the fourth line, remained on the power play and missed the net twice on the Rangers' first man-up opportunity later in the period.
Quick made a handful of close-range stops to maintain the 1-0 lead through 20 minutes, and he remained in the game despite getting his mask knocked off in a high-hit collision at the top of the crease with Benoit Pouliot, who was assessed a minor penalty for goaltender interference.
Doughty negated that penalty with a cross-check of Derek Stepan, however, and the Rangers seized the game in the middle session with their special teams.
The Rangers' power-play unit had been 1-for-19 to start the series, but some crisp puck movement resulted in a deft feed from Ryan McDonagh from the right circle to Kreider in front for the redirection and a tie game at 15:42. Richards was credited with the second assist, his first point of the series.
Dominic Moore then was called for a borderline hook of Willie Mitchell at 17:37, but it was Boyle who put the Rangers ahead with their third shorthanded goal of the postseason.
Carl Hagelin, who netted the previous two, outfought Slava Voynov along the right wall at center ice and led Boyle into the zone. The former King stepped around Doughty at the left circle, and as Quick drifted out of his crease, rifled a wrister over the goalie's glove into the far upper corner, barely hitting the net, for a 2-1 lead with 29.6 seconds remaining in the period and a completely different game entering the third.
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