2012 Los Angeles Kings Stanley Cup Ice Hockey Championship Ring
The 2012 Stanley Cup Final, commonly known as the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals, was the championship series of the National Hockey League (NHL) 2011–12 season, and the culmination of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs. This was the 119th year of the Stanley Cup's presentation. The Western Conference playoff champion Los Angeles Kings defeated the Eastern Conference playoff champion New Jersey Devils four games to two, capturing the first Stanley Cup title in the team's 45-year history, dealing the Devils just their second Stanley Cup Finals defeat in five tries and first since 2001. Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs.
The 2012 Final ended a long Stanley Cup Final appearance drought for the Los Angeles Kings, who had appeared in the Finals only once in franchise history, in 1993, when the Wayne Gretzky–led Kings lost to the Montreal Canadiens in five games. The New Jersey Devils last appeared in 2003 when winning the championship. It was the first championship series since 2007 whose Stanley Cup-clinching game was played on the winning team's home ice.
The Eastern Conference winner had home ice advantage for the first time since 2006, since the Devils had a better regular season record than the Kings. The Devils were the lowest-seeded team to have home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup Finals, a record previously held by the Devils when they won the Cup as a fourth seed in 2000. With the Devils entering the playoffs as the ninth seed of the 16 playoff teams by regular season record (no division titles) and the Kings as the 13th, their combined seed of 22 was the second highest of any playoff matchup (only trailing the 1991 Cup Finals with 23), and it was the first playoff matchup with no team seeded better than 9th. The Kings became the first, as well as the last eighth-seeded team to win the Stanley Cup since the conference-based seedings were introduced in 1994.