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It's interesting how your perspective about a series like this may change when you look at the big picture instead of game by game. When yesterday's game went into OT I was telling a friend of mine who is a big Kings fan that it didn't matter whether the Kings won or lost Game 2. My rationale was that even if the Rangers were going home tied 1-1 instead of down 2-0, there are a number of things that jump out at me from Games 1-2 that weigh heavily against New York:

1. Los Angeles is big, fast and has a relentless forecheck that makes even the best teams in the NHL crumble over a long series. More on that later.

2. It's obvious that Los Angeles can win even when they don't play their best, while the Rangers have to play nearly perfect hockey to beat this team.

3. The Rangers' style of play simply doesn't match up well against this Kings team. They can use their mistakes to take advantage of mistakes and expose some flaws in LA's game, but they don't do that often enough to make up for the overwhelming dominance of the Kings up front.

4. The Kings have the following four guys playing center: Anze Kopitar, Jeff Carter, Jarret Stoll and Mike Richards. That may be one of the best groups of centers to play on an NHL team together in decades. There's no way even a solid playoff opponent can match up against all of those guys.

5. Brad Richards, Rick Nash and Marion Gaborik have all disappeared in clutch situations for the Rangers in recent seasons. Gaborik now plays for the Kings and is the leading goal-scorer in the playoffs. The Rangers may be filing missing persons reports for Richards and Nash soon.

7. The Kings' depth up front eventually battered even the best teams in the Western Conference into submission. They seem to get better in a long series. The Bruins were probably the one team from the East that could have matched up well against any of the top Western teams, but even then I don't think the Bruins would have beaten any one of these three teams from the West: Los Angeles, Chicago or Anaheim.

8. Here in New York there was a lot of press coverage coming into this series about how Ryan McDonagh has emerged as a dominant force in these playoffs and may now be one of the best defensemen in the NHL. It's funny how quickly that changes ... I've seen him on the ice for so many big Los Angeles goals in these first two games -- even in situations where the Kings were outnumbered down low by the Rangers. Perhaps not coincidentally, the last time I saw him on the ice for a big goal in the playoffs was when he was flailing around desperately in front of Henrik Lundqvist while Adam Henrique was scoring the game-winning OT goal for the New Jersey Devils in the clinching game of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals.