The Anaheim Ducks are playoff mainstays these days; the lone team representing California following a year when the three California teams had to play for a state championship of sorts in order to advance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But, as the saying goes, there's a first time for everything.
Tim Jackman has played in 481 NHL games, yet his first playoff game will be Thursday night, as the Ducks open the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Winnipeg Jets. Chris Wagner has played in only nine NHL games, and his 10th could very well be a playoff game, as Anaheim's fourth-line center Nate Thompson is not expected to play in Game 1.
Others are a little more experienced in the postseason, but not in the NHL postseason.
Jiri Sekac found himself in a deep run last year, going all the way to the Gagarin Cup Finals with the KHL's HC Lev Praha in Prague, Czech Republic. Prague's O2 Arena, where the finals were contested, is one of few KHL clubs to play on a surface the same dimensions as North American rinks. It left the 22-year-old with a few lasting impressions of playoff hockey.
"Our finals were on a small ice surface and I don't know what it looks like here, but when we played back in KHL it was pretty tough on the small ice surface," he said. "Everyone is finishing hits, everyone is playing as hard as they can and everyone is paying attention to every single detail. As everybody knows, KHL is not as tough as NHL, but once we got to playoffs it got pretty intense and guys were throwing their bodies a lot, especially the last two rounds on the small ice surface."
Sekac and Lev Praha lost in the finals to Metallurg Magnitogorsk, but the physicality of the game and the small battles they lost stuck with him. In the postseason, those small battles can lead to big blunders if lost, or big payoffs if won. Based on his Gagarin Cup experience and the information he's gathered from more playoff-seasoned teammates, Sekac says the biggest takeaway is the details.
"You've got to make sure you get the pucks out and the pucks in at the certain spots and try to make as (few) mistakes as you can," he said. "One mistake can cause you to lose the game."
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Sekac insists that he's not nervous, but the goalie he's facing in Winnipeg's Ondrej Pavelec -- another Stanley Cup Playoff rookie -- says every first-timer has some level of jitters.
"When players say they're not nervous, I don't believe them," Pavelec said. "I think it's a good thing to be nervous, to be honest."
The only playoff action Pavelec has ever seen was in the AHL, but he feels that the Jets already played a playoff of sorts just to even qualify for the postseason.
"The last few weeks, we played playoff hockey. We needed every point, every win," he said. "I think it's going to help us to get through this series. We've been under pressure the last few weeks."
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And of course, the Jets and the city of Winnipeg are playoff newcomers themselves. While many of Pavelec's teammates have postseason experience, the team's city hasn't seen playoff action for 19 years, before the original franchise bolted for Phoenix. Tickets sold out in less than 10 minutes and all of Manitoba is behind the No. 8 seed.
"They've fallen in love with it," said Jets coach Paul Maurice. "It's a little bit like, for me, being the teacher in school and you've got their kids. This is their team. So the kids are getting good marks right now, and they're the parents coming up and they're so stinking happy. But never lose sight of the fact that's it's their team. So there's an ownership beyond that. There's a parental caring about this team in Winnipeg that's really special. It's special to be around.
After a few dry years, five of the seven Canadian teams are in the postseason and there's an undeniable air of excitement across the nation. A Canadian team still hasn't won the Stanley Cup since 1993, but with five dogs in the race, we could see yet another first: Lord Stanley's first Canadian homecoming of this century.
"It's what we want for our sport and the game of hockey," Maurice said. "You see it in all of the Canadian cities, it's March Madness and then some across Canada."
