Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

VANCOUVER -- Very few organizations get to be the Detroit Red Wings, a club that has made the playoffs for 19 consecutive seasons -- or every spring since Alexander Edler turned one year old.

Everyone aspires to be the Red Wings, the most successful National Hockey League team of this generation by some margin, but there can only be one winged wheel.

So if you can get your hands on some of what they've got, you grab it and run.

When Mikael Samuelsson became a free agent that Detroit GM Ken Holland simply couldn't fit under his salary cap this past summer, it was like a little piece of Nicklas Lidstrom, salted with some Steve Yzerman, Igor Larionov, Kris Draper and Scotty Bowman had come on to the market.

Canucks GM Mike Gillis leapt at it, which was exactly the right thing to do.

"He shows by example," Daniel Sedin said of Samuelsson, whose two goals and seven shots in Game 1 included the overtime winner. "He is really calm before games, relaxed. He knows it is a big game, but you can't be too uptight. You have to keep playing the same way as in the regular season, and he showed that (in Game 1). Two big goals and he blocked a shot late in the third. That's what it takes to win games."

But where exactly does "it" come from? What, precisely, is "it?"

"It is calmness," said Samuelsson, who is uncomfortable with the topic, because it makes him sound like some kind of playoff guru. "Once in a while … (you should say) it's only a game. Even if it's more. It's huge, obviously, but … what's the worst case scenario? You lose. So what, once in a while. Don't get me wrong -- I want to win. But you have to have that mindset."

Who taught him the most during his four seasons in Detroit?

"(Kris) Draper is right up there. Lidstrom too. All those guys," he said. "Draper, he (creates) a good atmosphere in the room to have. So positive. That's how you've got to stay."

We talked to a few of the Red Wings prior to the start of playoffs about the cryptic quality that is playoff experience. What exactly has Gillis infused into his dressing room, with the acquisition of Samuelsson?

"It's like a seed. It grows," Detroit tip-master Tomas Holmstrom said. "The young guys coming up, they just get in line and they learn how it works, and they grow into it too. You have a winning concept, and everyone gets into that winning mentality.

"I wish I knew what I do now, 10 years ago," he sighed. "It doesn't come over night."

Some teams never find it. The San Jose Sharks, for instance. And the players they bring into their locker room only exacerbate their problems, like Dany Heatley, who has nowhere near the winning pedigree that Samuelsson has.

Because you have to go through the wars -- win some battles, lose some battles -- before you can claim to be battle tested. Simply winning or losing once doesn't cut it.

"Most guys in this room have seen everything, been through everything," said Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood, surveying his teammates after a recent practice. "Guys have been sitting in this room devastated after a loss, and had the hysteria of winning.

"When you put the big puzzle together, it just means that we know how to win. Not one guy in here hasn't had his struggles in the playoffs, had a bad playoffs. And not one guy hasn't had a great playoffs.

"Some teams go in afraid of it. We go in looking forward to it. We relish the fact we know how to win."

And that is what the Canucks look like, a little bit more this spring than last.

"I learned a lot in Detroit," Samuelsson will admit. "I don't know what I really learned, but it's such an environment there. To put into words? It's still hard to say."

He put it into action in Game 1, playing a clutch game at a clutch time. And on Tuesday he reminded anyone who asked, "This won't be a four-game series."

That is experience talking. In a Vancouver room that should be all ears.