The road to the Stanley Cup is rarely a straight line. Sometimes it’s the direction a puck takes as it leaves the post and goes in or out.
Four years ago, Artemi Panarin hit the post late in regulation that could have put Columbus up three games to none in the first round against Washington. Lars Eller scored, the Capitals won the series and then lifted the Stanley Cup.
Andre Burakovsky looks back now and acknowledges that he and the Capitals had some lucky rebounds en route to their first championship in franchise history. Now, with the Colorado Avalanche, he’s well aware that that’s only part of what it takes for a playoff team to get over the hump and win it all.
“It’s so hard to win the Stanley Cup,” Burakovsky said. “You’re going to need a little bit of luck and you’re going to need everyone on your team to be extremely focused and sacrifice and do whatever it takes to win.”
The NHL is full of title contenders who turn out to be pretenders and plenty of success stories about teams getting by and getting the job done. As the playoffs begin Monday night, Burakovsky and the Avalanche, the Carolina Hurricanes and the President’s Trophy-winning Florida Panthers are among the teams looking to make the leap, a challenge that is part good health and best of luck, but more about figuring out how to ride the win-loss rollercoaster through four rounds.
“Once you commit to something, whether it’s the defensive part of the game or whatever was holding you back, you commit and break through, then it becomes easier because you know what’s out there,” said Barry Trotz, who coached to the Capitals. to the Cup “It’s almost like climbing Mount Everest. You want to do it, you think you can do it and then you really have to do it and you get to a certain place.”
Players and coaches who have won the Cup or reached the final have described that rise as a combination of consistency, confidence and the right mix of goalkeeping and timely scoring.
The Tampa Bay Lightning certainly had all of that when they’ve won back-to-back the last two years. In 2021, they eliminated Florida in the first round, Carolina in the second round and Trotz’s New York Islanders in the Eastern Conference finals.
Ken Daneyko, who won the Cup with New Jersey three times, pointed to a Sam Bennett penalty that cost the Panthers last year. Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin said special teams made the difference against Tampa Bay and in his previous playoff outings against the Boston Bruins.
Current Devils coach Lindy Ruff agrees that’s a crucial part of winning in the playoffs.
“If your penalty kick is strong, if you’ve taken penalties and you don’t give the other team a chance to take advantage of it, that’s another big area,” said Ruff, who coached Buffalo to the finals in 1999. “A lot of times power may have problems. As a team looking to win, if you can keep the other team’s power play off the board, you have a better chance of winning.”
Five of the last six champions have finished in the top five on the power play or penalty shootout in the playoffs. Five of six were also in the top five in goals against.
Rod Brind’Amour, who captained the Hurricanes to the Cup in 2006 and coaches them now, said being strong in goal and keeping guys in the lineup are some of the keys.
“What does it take? You have to be healthy when you get to the playoffs,” Brind’Amour said. “If your best guys are out, it’s going to be tough.”
Brind’Amour and the Hurricanes enter the playoffs with a double setback: starting goalkeeper Frederik Andersen is injured. Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry is also out, while Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau are among the other big players hit.
Some Cup champions have overcome injuries, like the Blues losing Robert Thomas in 2019 and the Lightning winning again after Alex Killorn left during the 2021 final.
The Capitals lost center Nicklas Backstrom to injury and winger Tom Wilson to suspension before Game 6 of their second-round series against Pittsburgh and turned the spotlight on backup players to replace them. Jay Beagle and Nathan Walker assisted on Alex Chiasson’s goal in regulation, then Ovechkin assisted on Evgeny Kuznetsov’s game-winning goal in overtime as Washington advanced to the second round for the first time since 1998.
“Everyone had given us up for dead and that’s when we could have played one of our best games because there was that resilience that you’ve been punched in the nose and you have to keep getting up,” Trotz said. “They’re going to punch you in the nose. You’re going to have to get up a couple of times.
When the Penguins fired Mike Johnston early in the 2015–16 season, Mike Sullivan took over, telling players to forget about what happened in the previous game or off the track and “just play.” Several months later, they won the first of the consecutive Cup titles that veteran defender Ian Cole attributes to that mentality.
“We were so confident,” said Cole, who is now with Carolina. “We’d lose a game, we’d lose a series and it was like, ‘Okay, go win the next one.’ It’s just a trust and a consistent game plan and a consistent game. I think it’s having the right mindset and knowing how to win and not freaking out if you don’t, but being able to bounce right back and win the next one.”
Daneyko, now an analyst for the NHL Network, said he and his teammates learned in 1994 that every play matters. After the Devils lost a lead in Game 6 against the New York Rangers and were eliminated in seven, they learned a lesson and won the Cup the following year.
“We knew what it was going to take: You couldn’t sit still,” Daneyko said. “The emotion has to be balanced, it has to be under control. You have to stay level-headed but play your game.”
No matter how hockey plays out, the key is to make the playoffs for a chance to win. Among recent Cup champions, Tampa Bay has made the playoffs eight of the last nine years, St. Louis 10 of 11, Washington nine of 10 and Pittsburgh 16 in a row.
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