With varying degrees of playoffs past, the LA Kings are ready for the Game 1 experience

The makeup of the LA Kings roster heading into Game 1 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs features individuals at all ends of the spectrum, in all areas of the process.

The Kings have four players on their playoff roster who have reached the summit of the mountain, gone back down and then gone up to climb the damn thing again. They have three others who have put in a valiant effort, establishing themselves among the world’s best climbers, but ultimately fell short of standing on the top.

There’s also a group that has weathered the storm, gone into the climb, but ultimately fell short. Finally, there’s also a group of players, certainly larger than three, that have never left base camp. They’ve watched others depart the campsite, they’ve seen from afar others climb to the top of the mountain, but they’ve never lived it themselves, they’ve never actually done the climb on their own.

For several members of the Kings, that changes tomorrow. 15 players on the Kings active roster have never appeared in a game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Several of those individuals are expected to dress tomorrow evening against the Oilers in Game 1, with others an option to potentially debut themselves later on in the series.

“It’s special and it’s different,” Todd McLellan said. “We could sit here and talk to all of them, but until they feel the energy in the buildings, in the community, in LA with our fans, the excitement that happens and the momentum swings in games, it is different. They’re going to get that, starting with Game 1.”

Returning to the playoffs as an organization for the first time since 2018 has only gulfed that divide in experience. It’s pushed questions onto the younger players, who weren’t here, about how they’re preparing and it’s pushed questions onto the older players about what they’re doing to prepare the younger players. The common theme to the answers was one word – experience.

The only way to truly learn what a playoff game feels like is through experience and that’s been the messaging over the last couple of days.

“You try to share everything, but the thing is, you have to experience it first,” Anze Kopitar said. “I can talk to them all I want, but you have to experience that. I remember my first couple of playoff games, you could have had Wayne [Gretzky] talk to me and I still would have been nervous. It’s a fine line. You want to help them as much as you can, but you don’t want to overload them too much either.”

In terms of teachers, few teams are better equipped.

The Kings naturally have the trio of Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick, who are healthy and two-time cup champions here with the organization. They also have defenseman Olli Maatta, who twice reached the summit of the mountain with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. That’s not to mention the presence of Drew Doughty, who although not playing, is still a resource and a familiar face around the room.

All good things in the Kings favor, and something that not every qualifying team has in its arsenal.

“We might be one of the most inexperienced teams in the playoffs, but we have guys who have gone to the top twice,” McLellan said. “As a group, maybe Tampa can say that, but I don’t think there’s another group that can say that, I haven’t done the research, but four guys that have climbed. Inexperienced, but the experience there’s enough there to share.”

Beyond those who have won the cup twice, the trio of Viktor Arvidsson, Phillip Danault and Alex Edler have all been to the Stanley Cup Final, all falling short with other organizations. Then you have that next tier down, guys who have played in the postseason but have not reached the fourth round. Looking at your Adrian Kempe’s, your Trevor Moore’s, your Alex Iafallo’s.

Those guys have their own postseason experiences but haven’t nearly been here as frequently as some of their teammates.

“They’ve done this multiple times, they know what it takes to go all the way and to win games, win series in the playoffs,” Kempe said of the team’s veterans. “It’s a good thing for me, coming in, I don’t have as much experience as they do coming into the playoffs, but I can ask them questions. At the end of the day, it’s another game, we have to go out and keep playing the way we’ve been playing.”

Speaking with Moore the other day, he was asked to recall his first experience in the playoffs, his only one prior to this season.

Moore was a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs back in 2019 and scored the game-opening goal in a Game 3 victory. Toronto was ultimately on the losing side of a seven-game series against the Boston Bruins, but it was the first game he remembered.

“I remember it and being a little bit nervous, but also being just really excited,” Moore said. “It created awesome memories that I’ll carry forever and to get to do it again is really special. You can’t really think about how much the intensity goes up, but it really does go up a lot. It’s just exciting and we’ll have to be ready.”

The memories that players like Kopitar, Moore and Kempe have recalled are the ones that a group of Kings players will experience for the first time tomorrow evening.

Defenseman Matt Roy feels like a veteran at this point, but he’s never played in a playoff game. Neither has Mikey Anderson, who is now established as a full-time player in this league. Rookie defensemen Sean Durzi and Jordan Spence are in that boat as well, not to mention all of the rookie forwards who are options in this series.

Durzi was asked about the potential experience today and agreed with Kopitar’s thoughts on the situation. You can hear about it all you want, but the only way to truly learn is to learn through experience. That’s what he plans to do tomorrow.

“The great players in the league, the guys with the most playoff experience, the most decorated players didn’t become those types of players without learning for themselves,” Durzi said. “You can learn from the guys with experience, but you have to learn from experience, I think it’s the best teacher, you have to learn it yourself. There’s going to be nerves, going to be emotions, all of that but once you go through it, you learn something through experience, you get better.”

The hope for those like Durzi is that experience truly will be the best teacher, and that as students, those younger Kings are fast learners.

Kopitar believes they will be, and that stems from what those players have had to do in a pinch at other points in the season. The Kings were forced to put some younger players into roles they were perhaps not pegged for back in October. It was trial by fire at times, due to a rash of injuries, and players had to either sink or swim in the moment. Largely, those players succeeded.

“Especially this year, some of the young guys have taken on roles that weren’t necessarily expected of them, just because we’ve had so many guys hurt throughout the season,” he said. “They’ve handled a bit more pressure than maybe we should have put them through, so I like where our team is at. We’re going to go up there and try to win hockey games.”

The other element of the situation is consistency.

The Kings don’t plan to change a ton during their preparation, doing their best to stick with what got them to this point. Traits like identity, team structure and checking for their chances are how this team has been successful all season long and it’s how their head coach believes they can be successful come the postseason as well.

“Identity, resiliency, we’ve experienced a lot of things and I think we’ve played good hockey,” McLellan added. “We’re not changing a lot of things, there’s nothing dramatic in our preparation or our behavior. We’ll continue on and try to do it the way that we have.”

Tomorrow evening, we’ll see how it all shakes out.

Whether it’s Kopitar’s first postseason game since 2018, Moore’s first playoff game as a member of the Kings, Kempe’s first playoff game as a first-line forward or Durzi’s first playoff game in any capacity, it’s a night of firsts in many ways for the LA Kings.

Whichever first it is, the Kings plan to make it count and learn from that first experience along the journey.