Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

The Kings have more playoff experience than they get credit for.

VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Canucks have six players who scored 25 goals this season. The Los Angeles Kings have just six players who have played 25 National Hockey League playoff games in their entire career.

So, on the morning before Teacher met Student in Game 1 of this Western Conference quarter-final, the Canucks were in full cliché mode. They had nothing to say and were tired of saying it.

The Kings, meanwhile, had some explaining to do.

Nobody put it quite this bluntly, but the general theme from a press corps that includes exactly one — count her, one — print reporter from the NHL’s second largest market was along the lines of this:

"Is experience going to be as big a factor as the game notes suggest it might be?"

"Well," began veteran Kings defenceman Sean O’Donnell, "if we don’t win? Yeah. If we do win, then I’m going to say it’s a blessing."

But upon further inspection, it is fair to question how big an edge in experience the Canucks really have here.

To wit: O’Donnell won a Stanley Cup with Anaheim in ’07; Fredrik Modin won a Stanley Cup in Tampa in ’04; Justin Williams won a Stanley Cup in Carolina in ‘06. Rob Scuderi won a Stanley Cup in Pittsburgh a year ago and has played eight playoff rounds in the past two years alone.

Ryan Smyth, Matt Green and Jarret Stoll each went to Game 7 of the Cup final with Edmonton in ’06. They didn’t win it, but they got every inch out of the experience.

Meanwhile, in Vancouver’s dressing room there is only one player — Mikael Samuelsson — who has ever even played in a Stanley Cup final. His one ring, from 2008 with Detroit, would be the sum total of Stanley Cup rings owned by current Canucks players, had Aaron Rome not received one for playing a single, early-round game with Anaheim the year before.

So. Who’s got all of the experience now?

The difference is, the Kings veterans are hoping that osmosis works better at sea level. Because it’s the support players who have all the experience. The young stars who drive this Kings team are all at the dance for the first time.

"Everyone has gone through their first series. Crosby, Ovechkin — at some point it was their first series," reasoned O’Donnell, who cringes when asked who it was that passed on the most useful lessons to him when he was Anze Kopitar’s age.

"This is going to sound bad," he said, before ‘fessing up. "I learned a lot in the minors. My defence partner, and I sat beside him in the room, was Lindy Ruff. It was his (second) last year of pro. He’s a guy who really taught me a lot.

"He’s got a really calm demeanour; you can see how he’s done so well in Buffalo," he said of the current Sabres head coach, his defence partner in Rochester in the early 90s.

"I remember some of the things he taught me: When you make a bad play, take a deep breath and don’t go chasing the guy who you made a bad pass to.

"Little things. Have some poise, have some confidence back there. That’s the stuff I try to pass on to Drew (Doughty), Jack (Johnson), and some of these guys."

Vancouver has won first round playoff series in each other the past two seasons. Their experience is both fresh and an excellent motivator to want to go further in the spring of ’10..

But they don’t have a Scuderi on their blue-line, a rock-solid playoff-weathered D-man who has battled all the way through the past two Stanley Cup finals.

"I just try to lead by example. I don’t say a lot," admits Scuderi, looking around the Kings dressing room. "If everyone in here realizes that, if everyone has a good game — nothing great — don’t try to do anything extraordinary. Just have a good game, and we’ll give ourselves a good chance to win."

And who did he learn that from?

"Mark Recchi. Gary Roberts. Darryl Sydor. Hal Gill," Scuderi said. "They didn’t speak a whole lot. They just went out there and played the right way."

On Wednesday night, the eve of their coming out party, the Los Angeles Kings gathered for a team dinner in Vancouver. And on opening night of the Stanley Cup playoffs, of course, they watched a little hockey.

All the teams that weren’t supposed to win won.

That point was not lost. Even on group as inexperienced as these L.A. Kings.