There’s Nothing Like The Stanley Cup Playoffs

It is a time for jubilant celebration and a time for soul-crushing disappointment.

It is a time for trust and belief and a time that will test all you believe in and all that you trust.

It is time for the National Hockey League playoffs.

No other professional sport demands as much of its players or organizations as the Stanley Cup playoffs demands of its players and teams, an epic quest repeated each spring and while the reward is always the same the path to glory is always unique.

“I remember being overwhelmed with excitement,” goaltender Darcy Kuemper said. “It’s almost hard to remember because it was such a surreal experience, and hearing the difference in the crowd, the intensity in the locker room, the intensity on the ice.”

He is remembering his first playoff experience.

On May 7, 2013, Kuemper took over for Josh Harding in the Minnesota Wild net and stopped 16 of 18 shots in a 3-0 Chicago Blackhawks win. The next spring Kuemper had taken over the starting job in goal and the Wild knocked off heavily favored Colorado in the first round. Eight years later Kuemper won a Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2022.

“I think that’s what makes it so special. When you’re playing on the street and on the outdoor rink growing up, it’s always for the Stanley Cup,” Kuemper said of the postseason. “It’s what you’ve been dreaming of your whole life, so to actually get out there and everyone’s experiencing the same thing, it’s the best hockey you’ll ever play.”

The reality is the playoffs can be overwhelming. And in each of the 16 NHL locker rooms at this very moment coaches are trying to instill the message; don’t let the moment take over, don’t let the enormity of the task detract you from doing what you do.

But in those same locker rooms young players will be looking to veterans to show them the way to provide clues about how to navigate these crucial moments.

“You’ve got to be very careful. I think the biggest thing is there’s so much emotion involved already, the highs and the lows, you have to be ready to balance those out, and winning Game One’s awesome, but there’s a lot of series left, and losing Game One sucks, but there’s a lot of series left, and things like that. You just got to kind of be ready for whatever happens and just stay in the moment the best you can,” Kuemper said. “The most important game is always the next one, the most important period is always the next one. Obviously, you want to get a head start in the series, but there’s so many ups and downs and momentum swings throughout games, throughout series, so it’s just a journey.”

Kuemper recalled a speech given by veteran Andrew Cogliano after the Colorado Avalanche lost Game 5 in the 2022 Stanley Cup Final with the Avalanche up 3-1 in the series.

“He gave a really, really important speech, I think, that helped us overcome that low and be able to bounce back and win it the next game,” Kuemper recalled. “Just about staying in the moment and not worrying about the result. If you’re looking at the end of the game, it’s hard to play the game in the moment, so just being able to accept that whatever happens, happens, but if you go out there and do things the right way, then, regardless of the result, you can be at peace with it, and I think that helped guys just go out there and play their game.”

The Avs won the next game, finishing off two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa in six games.

That night Kuemper took the Cup from teammate Andre Burakovsky.

And he passed it to?

Kuemper smiles at the memory. Or lack of said memory.

“I can’t even remember. I’d have to go back and watch the video,” he said with a laugh.

The veteran netminder has lots of company in the Kings room when it comes to those players who have walked the long path to a championship. Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar and Trevor Lewis, of course, own two Stanley Cup rings from the Kings’ wins in 2012 and 2014. Joel Edmundson won a Cup in St. Louis in 2019. He was teammates with Phil Danault in Montreal in 2021 when the Habs lost in the final to Tampa.

Warren Foegele recalled his first-ever playoff experience with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2019.

“I think just excitement, butterflies, nerves. I was surrounded by a bunch of guys that had experienced it before to kind of tell me what to expect,” Foegele recalled. “We had this belief in our room, and what we have here as well, is I think we’re up for the fight against anybody.”

That first series was a true trial by fire for Foegele as the Hurricanes, playing in their first post-season tournament in a decade, fell behind 2-0 to Alex Ovechkin and the defending Cup champion Washington Capitals.

“Game 3 was probably the biggest game for us to win at home, and then we made it 2-2,” Foegele recalled. “It was basically whoever was at home was winning until Game 7. So pretty exciting times, and I’m happy I was able to go through that experience. I remember I scored in Game 3 and I couldn’t hear for a solid minute and a half. And I was like, wow, this place is rocking.”

The series ended in double-overtime in Game 7 when Mr. Game 7, Justin Williams set up the series-clinching goal by Brock McGinn in Washington.
Williams, of course, holds a special place in many hockey hearts in Los Angeles after his contributions to two Stanley Cups.

“It’s one thing to say stuff, but those guys go out and do it as well,” Foegele said. “I remember Justin Williams always saying, ‘don’t be scared of the moment,’ and ‘let’s attack, let’s play to win,’ little things like that. Maybe you’re like, oh, what does that really mean? But it basically means let’s just live in this moment and don’t hold back.”

The Canes went on to sweep the New York Islanders in the second round before losing to Boston in the Eastern Conference Final in 2019. Last spring Foegele took his own personal Stanley Cup journey one step further as a member of the Edmonton Oilers, losing to Florida in a gripping seven-game series.

Even though he’s just 29, Foegele has wisdom to share with a cadre of Kings players hoping for those same experiences themselves.

“I think I’ve done a good job of being honest with those young guys and making them feel comfortable to talk to me and share their opinions too. At the end of the day, as long as you all believe, you’ve got a great chance,” said Foegele recently voted most valuable newcomer on the Kings roster. I think this group really believes. I wasn’t here those other years, but it feels like a really tight group. The teams that I’ve been on that have gone through this, especially last year, we were a tight group. When you’re a tight group, you have guys that are willing to sacrifice a little bit more than the guys that aren’t as tight.”

Joel Edmundson has played in 82 post-season games.

He has played on teams that missed the playoffs and got bounced in the first round. But he’s also played on squads that went to a Stanley Cup Final, with Montreal in 2021, and two years earlier, in 2019, was part of the St. Louis Blues’ epic run to the franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup championship.

“It just feels like the deeper you go, the more electric it is, playing at home in front of your fans, you want the building to be as loud as it can be, but then on the road you want it to be in silence. So, it’s a good feeling either way, if you can silence the away crowd,” Edmundson said. “That’s why we all play the game, moments like that, and just the energy in the city, it’s the best.”

In some ways the journey is a reward in and of itself, the process of getting better and better each round, of facing down the inevitable adversity.

“It’s the feeling of everyone in the locker room has bought in, playing good hockey, and playing for each other, and every night you think you’re going to win. You have that confidence that you need, you need the confidence to win in this league,” Edmundson explained. “We definitely have that in this locker room. Obviously not too confident, but you’ve got to be humble at the same time, so we know we’ve got our work cut out for us, but we’ve got to play with a little bit of swagger.”

Thinking ahead to the start of this series Edmundson will allow himself to think about what it took to get to the very end of the journey.

“I think in the back of the mind, you’re just, I’ve been here before, Game One of the first round,” Edmundson said. “And it’s obviously a big game, but there’s lots of hockey left, so, you know, just stay in the moment and have fun with it.”

And maybe he’ll think of that moment when he turned and took the Stanley Cup from his good friend, netminder Jordan Binnington on that June night in Boston in 2019.

“We’ve got a nice picture of that,” the veteran defender said.

And no, he doesn’t remember who he passed the Cup to, either.

For Danault, who played his first playoff game with the Montreal Canadiens against Original Six foe the New York Rangers, the enormity of the stakes and the emotion that goes with confronting those stakes is balanced out by what the players have worked on all year in learning systems and to play a certain way almost by rote.

“The playoffs, it means so much, but at the same time, you work all year to get consistency. And it becomes a routine,” Danault said.
For the first 10 minutes the pace will be a blur but then it should become second nature. Your routine comes in. What you did all year becomes a normal thing. You execute faster. You play faster. Everything is a little faster. But you pick it up real fast.”

Even though he did not have the ultimate success in winning a Cup, having gone through the gauntlet to be one of two teams standing will always stay with Danault.

“Just the momentum to get there and all the emotion you go through, that’s what you play for. Yeah, it’s really hard to get there, but once you get there, it’s just like heaven,” Danault said. “It’s really fun. Especially when you have momentum, and you see that you have a chance to beat (the other team). It’s just special. Once you seal the deal, there’s no better feeling than this. It’s the best feeling to get there. I think whether you lose or you win, it’s the best feeling to just push yourself to the limit.”

The world changes for the coaching staff, too, when the script flips from regular season to playoff mode.

“I would say, I mean, not unlike the players, we understand what’s on the line as well,” Kings head coach Jim Hiller said. “So, I think you’re only human. You feel the energy of the crowd and the excitement and are probably a little bit more amped up than you would typically be. That’s just how life is.”

Of course, as the players seek to harness their emotions, it’s the coaching staff’s job to help them in that process because the player take their cues from the coaches.

“I think if you want to try to help the players remain in the moment, calm, focused, then I think it’s incumbent on you to at least have the same type of demeanor, to mirror what you want them to be. So, that’s important for us,” Hiller said.

Coaching in the playoffs means an entirely different mindset than coaching in the regular season.

“I think I could probably speak for most coaches. This is the purest form of coaching, because you are just so dialed in. There’s no other distractions. You’ve got one team to prepare for, one team to review, one team to prepare for again,” Hiller said. “And it just allows you to, the flow state they call it, right? It just allows you just to stay locked on. Whereas, as you mentioned, there’s always something going on in the regular season. So, to me, it’s the greatest part. It’s the greatest time to be a coach, because you can just dive right in.”

The one thing that binds the coaches and the players together, though, is the shared dream of the possible.

“It’s really exciting. I think that’s what it is. You’re just excited to be part of that atmosphere. Everybody who’s on that bench, player or coach, was a kid who sat in front of the television with their parents and watched it and thought, wow, this is incredible. And so, I have that moment where I’m just like, this is great. I remember sitting with my dad watching this, and guess what? Take a look around, man, enjoy it.”