on to win the Stanley Cup last season.The Kings, meanwhile, are 1-8 in playoff games since their last Stanley Cup championship. They are sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference standings with the fewest points in the NHL.The Kings fired coach John Stevens following a 4-8-1 start, but are 5-8-0

WASHINGTON (AP) The Stanley Cup Final is a block party for the Washington Capitals.For all of Evgeny Kuznetsov’s points on offense and Braden Holtby’s saves in net Womens Tom Pyatt Jersey , the Capitals are one win away from blocking their way to the Cup. They’ve gotten in front of almost a third of the Vegas Golden Knights’ shots, blocking with enough smarts and precision to take a 3-1 series lead into Game 5 Thursday.”There’s more to blocking shots than just going out there and trying to get hit,” Holtby said. ”We’re doing a great job of creating the right layers, guys going out there strategically to know which lane I’m picking for sight lines and they’re taking away the other half and making big blocks.”Washington is blocking in quantity and quality in the final, 86 total, in limiting Vegas to 124 shots on Holtby – many of which he’s seeing and stopping . Even star captain Alex Ovechkin is blocking shots as he gets closer to tasting his first championship.”You see `O’ jumping in front of shots, it makes everyone on the team want to do the same,” winger Devante Smith-Pelly said.Blocking shots is a team-wide commitment right now and comes from a season’s worth of skaters, goaltending coach Scott Murray, Holtby and Philipp Grubauer getting on the same page. The goalies have worked on making sure they can see past blocks to give players the confidence to get in front of pucks.And in return, Capitals players study opponents’ tendencies and consciously decide when to try to block a shot and not so Holtby isn’t at a disadvantage.”You obviously don’t want to cross in front of him,” center Jay Beagle said. ”You don’t want to become a screen. So if you miss the block, which happens, guys are good at shooting pucks and stuff, you want it still so from your standpoint you didn’t hinder Holts’ view.”Defensemen have an understanding of which half of the net is their responsibility and which half is Holtby’s. Forwards closer to the blue line have to react quickly Jordan Nolan Jersey Womens , take the right angle and get to the shooter.”If guys have time and space, they’re going to be able to sift one through,” Smith-Pelly said. ”For the forwards, it’s just going out there pretty hard and just getting in the way.”The amount of shots the Capitals have blocked through four games seems to be getting in the Golden Knights’ heads. They’re struggling to get quality shots through and resorting to settling for lower-danger scoring chances.”If you’re going to take shots, make sure they pay a price for blocking those shots,” Vegas coach Gerard Gallant said. ”Shoot it harder.”Capitals coach Barry Trotz doesn’t want his players thinking too much about blocking shots or hesitating. He doesn’t care much about Ovechkin’s blocking form or the philosophy of shot-blocking as long as it keeps the puck out of the net.”If you’re positionally sound, if you’re in shot lanes, block the shot,” Trotz said. ”It’s all about will.”And that will can turn into skill. Washington has been comfortable and confident enough in the final to push the puck up ice quickly, and a well-timed block shot can set the table for an odd-man rush.”The less shots they have, the more opportunities we’re gonna have in offensive zone,” defenseman Dmitry Orlov said. ”Sometimes when you block it, you get quicker pass and you jump on the rush and you got 3-on-2 or 4-on-3.”The Golden Knights by this point are well-aware of that. But they don’t really have a solution.”You just have to – I don’t know – defensemen, puck fake, maybe move around Zack Smith Jersey , or maybe look for a guy off to the side, or put it off the end wall,” forward Alex Tuch said. ”There are a bunch of different plays that could happen and when they’re blocking shots they’re getting momentum from it, and if they’re blocking shots and having odd-man rushes that’s even worse. ”In addition to a suffocating neutral-zone trap that’s not easy to play but has frustrated opponents for four rounds, the Capitals have embraced a shot-blocking-when-it-matters mentality.”It’s not exactly fun, but you got to do if you really want to win,” Smith-Pelly said. ”Everyone is on board with doing those things.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals— Justin Williams helped the Los Angeles Kings win their only two Stanley Cup titles in franchise history. He’s spent the past three seasons reminding the organization what a good player they had.Williams will get his latest chance to torment his former team when the Carolina Hurricanes (12-9-4) visit the Kings (9-16-1) at Staples Center on Sunday night.Williams has six points (one goal, five assists) in six games against the Kings since he left them following the 2014-15 season. The Washington Capitals and Hurricanes are a combined 3-1-2 in those games against the Kings.Article continues below ...Carolina traded Williams to the Kings late in the 2008-09 season in what turned out to be one of the best deals in the 11-year tenure of general manager Dean Lombardi.Williams soon became one of their most valuable and popular players, leading them to Cups titles in 2012 and 2014, and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in the second championship run.Many of his teammates on those championship teams still play in Los Angeles.“You always remember the people you win with, always, and you remember each other as champions,” Williams told the Washington Post prior to his first return to Staples Center in February 2016. “Obviously I have a lot of feelings — good feelings — towards my time there, but time marches on, and in this day and age Ryan O'Reilly Jersey Womens , you’re very rarely with one team for your whole career. I’ve moved on, and they have too.”Just as he arrived in Los Angeles at the perfect time, Williams seemed to have departed at the right period, signing with the Capitals in hopes of winning another championship. He just missed that goal when he signed with Carolina in the summer of 2017 and the Capitals went on to win the Stanley Cup last season.The Kings, meanwhile, are 1-8 in playoff games since their last Stanley Cup championship. They are sitting at the bottom of the Western Conference standings with the fewest points in the NHL.The Kings fired coach John Stevens following a 4-8-1 start, but are 5-8-0 under Willie Desjardins. They appeared to be gaining momentum after back-to-back wins against the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday and the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, but lost on back-to-back nights to the Oilers on Thursday and the Calgary Flames on Friday.“They’re really disappointed after a loss and they’re on edge, not happy about it at all, and that’s the way they should be,” Desjardins said.One area that needs improvement for Los Angeles is its penalty kill. The unit is 19-for-32 over the past 10 games, dropping to 29th in the league at 72.7 percent. Los Angeles had the No. 1 penalty kill unit in the NHL last season (85.0).Carolina is 23rd in the league in power-play efficiency at 16.5 percent.The Hurricanes are 6-2-2 in their past 10 games and have held six of their past eight opponents to two goals or fewer. The Kings are last in the NHL at 2.12 goals a game.