The Los Angeles Kings Have Lost The Stanley Cup-Winning Puck

No one could blame the Los Angeles Kings for losing track of anything in the immediate delirium that accompanies the clinching of the franchise's first Stanley Cup, but if there's one thing you're going to want to keep dibs on in the aftermath, it would be the whereabouts of the final puck. Now, it appears the Kings have absolutely no idea where this piece of vulcanized rubber may be.

Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com has the details, although no one really knows much right now. Here's where we stand:

As of Wednesday, team officials still were uncertain what happened to the puck after the Kings defeated the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 on June 11 to clinch the Stanley Cup.

Replays of the final seconds of that game show that New Jersey left winger Patrik Elias flipped the puck into his glove while the Kings celebrated, but what he did after that is still unknown. After the handshake line he appeared to hand his stick to someone in the crowd, but it isn't clear whether the puck went there, as well.

So as of now, it looks like the puck could be anywhere from Newport to Newark.

Maybe Elias still has the puck and plans on holding it ransom? Doug Mientkiewicz could tell him that's unwise. He essentially tried that after the Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, and he now feels like he'll always be know as That Guy Who Wouldn't Give The Red Sox Their Damn World Series Ball Back. ("If they have a 10-year reunion," he said last year, "I'm scared to death that if I go back, there might be a red dot on my chest.") Maybe it just disappeared into the ether, like Patrick Kane's Cup-clincher did two years ago?

If you have any info regarding the whereabouts of the lost puck, operators are standing by.

[ ESPNLosAngeles.com]