2014 WCF Game 7 vs Los Angeles Kings

Lore & Background

The 2013-14 Stars were a team on the cusp. Seguin had just broken out, Benn was entering his prime, and the front office had built a young, fast, two-way group that scored at a high clip. The regular season set the stage for a deep run, and the first-round matchup against the Kings—physical, structured, and battle-tested—felt like the perfect proving ground. Dallas won Game 1 in Los Angeles, tied the series at 2-2 after four games, and then saw the Kings claw back to force a decider. The Kings' identity in that era was unmistakable: heavy forechecking, a wall of a defense anchored by Drew Doughty, and the quiet, surgical genius of Anze Kopitar operating in the slot. They did not outscore you; they outworked you, outpositioned you, and made you earn every inch. In Game 7, that philosophy held. The Stars generated chances but could not separate the netminder, while Los Angeles found just enough in the second half to put the series to bed. For the franchise, the loss crystallized a narrative that would define the next several years: Dallas could compete with anyone, could play with anyone, but the final inch in a seven-game series against a disciplined, experienced opponent remained elusive. The 2014 Game 7 became the reference point—the night the ceiling was visible but not quite reached.

In Their Own Story

The American Airlines Center hummed at 7 p.m. on a late-April night, the kind of Texas spring where the air outside is already thick but the arena is a cold, blue-white cathedral of skates on ice. The Stars' bench sat shoulder to shoulder—Seguin, Benn, the veterans—eyes locked on the ice where the Kings' forecheckers were already pressing, sticks chopping, bodies checking. The crowd noise was a low, sustained roar, the kind that swells and dips with every puck possession. Somewhere in the third period, the ice was scarred, the boards were dented, and the difference between a franchise's spring and another long summer came down to one deflection, one save not made, one extra second of possession. The Kings' bench erupted. The Stars' did not. And the season, for that year, was over.

Reader's Guide

The Stars needed a win at home to survive the first round; the Kings needed one to keep their post-championship run alive. Stakes: elimination, full stop. The first period was a war of attrition—both teams parked in the neutral zone, bodies flying into the boards, the puck cycling end to end with neither side willing to commit. Dallas controlled time of possession but could not convert, and the Kings absorbed every rush with a wall of forechecking pressure. The second period broke open in bursts. A Stars power-play chance drew the Kings' goalie into a scramble, but the puck stayed in play and Los Angeles cleared. Then, in the middle stretch, the Kings struck—Kopitar threading a pass through traffic, the finish crisp and clinical. Dallas answered quickly, Seguin finding space in the slot and burying it, but the lead never held. The Kings re-established their advantage late in the frame, and the Stars came back to the bench with their backs to the wall. The third was a siege. Dallas threw everything forward—Seguin, Benn, the entire top six—and the Kings simply did not blink. Doughty and his defensemen absorbed shot after shot, the goalie stood tall, and the clock ticked. The final horn sounded with the Kings up 2-1, and the series was over. The aftermath reshaped the franchise narrative: Dallas was proven to be a contender, but the gap between competing and closing out remained. The Kings, meanwhile, marched on to the second round before falling to Chicago, and the 2014 Cup would belong to the Blackhawks. For Dallas, that night at the American Airlines Center became the yardstick against which every future spring was measured.

Did You Know?

• The Kings entered the 2014 playoffs as the 2012 Stanley Cup champions, making their first-round exit a particularly bitter pill for a franchise that had just tasted the ultimate prize two years earlier.
• Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty formed a center-defense pairing that became the architectural backbone of the Kings' identity throughout the 2010s, and their chemistry was on full display in this series.
• Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn were only in their second and third NHL seasons respectively when they faced this elimination, meaning the emotional weight of a Game 7 loss at home became a formative experience for a young c
• The Kings' second-round opponent, the Chicago Blackhawks, went on to win the 2014 Stanley Cup, making Dallas' first-round exit a footnote in a larger Western Conference story.