Previous Playoff Failure Key to Success

The key to winning in the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs is losing. If you want to win Lord Stanley's precious mug, don't think you can waltz on to the playoff scene and master the tango without previous postseason follies.

The NHL's playoff system is no "American Idol" competition or "America's Got Talent" where the winner rises from obscurity to become a nation's hero. No, hockey is a playground in which only the battle-tested can emerge victorious. The last team standing in June has nearly always just recently tasted bitter defeat.

This year's playoffs have eliminated 26 teams from Cup contention and the teams that are left all have fans who are grasping for something greater than spring suffering. Of the teams that have advanced to their respective Conference Final, Buffalo, Ottawa, and Anaheim have all come painfully close to glory in the not-too-distant past. Their prior failures give them plenty of ammunition because if history repeats itself, as it far to often does, the winning team path to the Cup will liken itself much more to Martin Scorsese's journey to Oscar glory than to Forest Whitaker's route to grandeur.

This evidently necessary step of losing in the playoffs before winning has been a blatant trend in the NHL. Since 1947, only four teams have won the Stanley Cup after missing the playoffs in the previous year. The winners have almost always received a taste of the playoffs before the sample was all too soon snatched away.

The playoffs, especially of the NHL variety, are a grueling test of man's strength and endurance. The seemingly endless overtimes take a toll on the body and the mind. Thus, it is imperative that teams have a large lot of athletes who have felt the pain of defeat and learned from it. Playoff experience is often balked as inconsequential, but when it comes to winning it all and actually hoisting the silver mug, there is nothing more imperative.

Last year's Stanley Cup winning Carolina Hurricanes — although they hadn't been to the playoff ballroom in the previous two seasons — had the necessary experience to draw from when they were forced to a seventh game by the Edmonton Oilers. Just four years earlier, the Hurricanes had lost to the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final in just five games. Nine players from the 2002 team were still with Carolina in 2006 and undoubtedly were the catalysts behind much of the success.

In 2004 the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Calgary Flames in the Final after having lost in five game to the eventual Cup-winning New Jersey Devils. Nineteen of the players who felt the stab of defeat were parading on the ice the following year.

The same story can be told for nearly every Cup winner. The 2002 Detroit Red Wings had lost in the second round the previous two years before breaking through and winning the Cup. Colorado won the 2001 Stanley Cup after losing in the Conference Final in three of the previous four years.

Now come back with me to the 2007 NHL playoffs to delve into how this historic trend will play out this year.

Ultimately, if the hockey gods are fair and forgiving, the Stanley Cup should be Canada bound, landing in Ottawa. The Senators and their fans have been invited to the year-end dance for the past 10 seasons and still have nothing to show for it. They have experienced their fair share of defeat, especially to the rival Toronto Maple Leafs, and they are due to break out of their decade-long funk.

With hockey's best line in Jason Spezza, Daniel Alfredsson, and Dany Heatley, Ottawa is primed for a Cup run. By beating the New Jersey Devils in round two and knowing the Leafs are on the links, the Senators should finally be rewarded for their 10 years of failure.

Although Ottawa's fans can cry foul for the last decade of playoff heartbreak, their Conference Final foe, the Buffalo Sabres, haven't exactly perfected their parade route. In 37 years of existence, Buffalo has qualified for the playoffs 28 times and have fell short every year. Combined with the NFL's Bills futility, the city of Buffalo can make a strong case for "paying their dues" and deserving a championship.

In the Western Conference, Anaheim has moved on to the next round and is also looking for its first Stanley Cup. The Ducks came within one win of presenting California with the Cup in 2003 and lost in the Conference Final last year. They don't have the strongest argument for lengthy runs of frustration but still qualify for the "lose before you win" criteria.

While Anaheim prepares for the Conference Final, Detroit just prevailed after slugging it out with San Jose in the second round. Detroit's recent string of first-round losses will give them extra motivation to brighten the spirits of a sagging Motor City by bringing home the franchise's 11th Cup.

With the Conference Finals just on the horizon, the final dance is within reach. For the franchises who are left — three of which who have never won a Cup — they are in the third round because of an abundance of playoff experience and previous losses. Ultimately, the final do-se-doe will be performed by the team who is most starving for a Cup.

If "absence makes the heart grow fonder," then losing make the desire grow stronger.