LOS ANGELES — It took 64 minutes of sparkling hockey from Henrik Lundqvist to keep the Rangers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final.  It took one huge mistake from Dan Girardi to cost the Blueshirts the game.  Girardi’s giveaway set up Justin Williams’ winner 4:36 into overtime as the Los Angeles Kings, the favorite in this Final, rallied for a wild and thrilling 3-2 victory.  The Kings needed more than three periods to finally take Game 1, completing a comeback from a two-goal hole — despite a literal one-man show by Lundqvist in the third period. Game 2 is at Staples Center on Saturday. “It’s disappointing, but at the same time it’s just one game,” Lundqvist said after making 40 saves, including 20 in the third, in the first Final appearance of his career. “We’ll come back here and have a strong performance in the next one.”  Lundqvist was an absolute king among Kings in the third, maintaining a 2-2 knot despite L.A. holding an ice-tilting 14-0 shot advantage en route to 20-3 overall in the period until Martin St. Louis finally put rubber on Jonathan Quick for a glove stop with 8:18 left in regulation.  “He’s the reason we went to overtime,” Alain Vigneault said of Lundqvist. “I thought it was a hard-fought first 40 minutes by both teams. Not quite sure what happened there in the third. Not sure if it was them being that good or us stopping moving the puck and skating and going north-south. They definitely took it to us in the third and they were able to get a bounce on the winning goal and put it in the back of the net.”  The Rangers hadn’t played for five days since vanquishing Montreal in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final last Thursday at the Garden, while the Kings were coming off their third seventh-game win on the road in these playoffs, an overtime decision Sunday night in Chicago.  There was a lively atmosphere in and around the arena’s surrounding L.A. Live area all afternoon, and the excitement only ramped up further when Wayne Gretzky — a former King and Ranger — was introduced to drop the ceremonial first puck.  Benoit Pouliot and Carl Hagelin (shorthanded breakaway) netted first-period goals for the Blueshirts, but the resilient Kings haven’t been daunted by multi-goal deficits throughout the playoffs. As usual, they clawed back to tie it by 6:36 of the second period on goals from Kyle Clifford and Drew Doughty.  “I mean, we certainly don’t want to make a habit out of this,” Williams said. “That is a world-class team up there with world-class offense. There could have been a lot of story lines tonight. They had a breakaway in the end of the third period that Quick made a great save on, or we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.  “A lot of things going awry during the game. We certainly have to clean that up. We certainly weren’t ready for the speed of their wingers, I don’t think.”  Each team had a golden chance to end the game in the final minute of regulation while Brian Boyle was off for slashing for the last 1:36 of the third. Seconds after Quick (25 saves) got his glove on Hagelin’s second shorthanded breakaway attempt of the game, Jeff Carter’s wraparound attempt deflected off the hustling Hagelin’s skate and the left post before Lundqvist sprawled across the crease to knock the puck off the goal line with 30 seconds to go. Early in overtime, however, Girardi stumbled while back-skating after the puck took a weird hop off his stick in the defensive zone, and his soft clearance attempt from one knee was intercepted along the wall just inside the blue line by Mike Richards.  “There’s nothing I can do about it right now,” Girardi said. “Maybe go higher next time or go to the corner and eat it, but I’m not going to dwell on it.”  Richards then fed Williams for a wrister from the slot that beat Lundqvist up high for the game-winner.  “I tried to come out and play it the way I should (have), but I don’t know,” Lundqvist said.  “I probably could have played that a little bit better, but it’s always easy to look back and have the right answer.”
The battle for the crown will be anything but an easy ascension for Henrik Lundqvist and the Rangers, especially against these battle-tested Kings. But who possibly could have thought it would be a cakewalk for either side after what has transpired all spring?