Kings’ notes and quotes from Tuesday

Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick probably cemented the Conn Symthe trophy when he blanked the New Jersey Devils on Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday, stopping all 22 shots he faced en route to a 4-0 victory and his third shutout of the playoffs. Quick has given up only 24 goals on 478 shots in 17 playoff games.

“It started against St. Louis in the first game,” teammate Jarret Stoll said of the moment Quick emerged as the likely MVP of the playoffs. “I remember that sequence. Andy McDonald had a couple of saves against him backdoor. He had a wide-open net and he stoned McDonald. Quickie was there for us and kept the game 0-0 until we found our game, found a way to get the lead. He’s been great.

“Definitely against St. Louis, he was huge.”

–Gagne update

Kings coach Darryl Sutter wouldn’t say whether he would keep center Simon Gagne in the lineup in favor of Brad Richardson. Gagne played only limited minutes in Game 3 on Monday, his first game since Dec. 26. He had been sidelined by a concussion, but resumed skating with his teammates May 25.

“Well, he hadn’t played for six months and he played six months,” Sutter said of Gagne. “So, we will make that decision tomorrow.”

–The American Way

If the Kings win the Cup tonight, Dustin Brown would become the first American team captain to lift it since Derian Hatch of the Dallas Stars in 1999. Brown is a native of Ithaca, N.Y., and was a member of the 2010 U.S. Olympic team.

–Comeback Kings

The Devils are down 3-0 in the series, facing a daunting but not impossible task as they try to rally to win. Three teams in Stanley Cup playoff history have rallied from such a deficit to win a best-of-7 series, including the 2010 Philadelphia Flyers. Jeff Carter and Mike Richardson now play with the Kings, but were then with the Flyers.

–Is Kovalchuk injured?

There has been some chatter the last two days that New Jersey’s Ilya Kovalchuk is playing despite an unknown injury, which is why he’s scoreless so far in the Final after leading the Devils with 18 points, including seven goals, in the first three rounds.

“Yeah, you get this deep in the playoffs, everybody’s playing hurt,” New Jersey coach Peter DeBoer said. “You guys want somebody to blame for the situation we’re in. It’s not like that, you know. We’re working hard. We’re dong a lot of good things. It hasn’t gone our way yet. We’ve got to keep going.”

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