NHL playoffs begin with teams seeking Stanley Cup. How hard is it to win?

The NHL is full of title contenders that turn out to be pretenders and plenty of success stories about teams that figure it out and get the job done. What does it take to win?

The path to the Stanley Cup is rarely a straight line. Sometimes it’s the direction a puck takes when it banks off the post and in – or out.

Four years ago, Artemi Panarin clanked a shot off the post late in regulation that could have put Columbus up three games to none in the first round against Washington. Lars Eller scored, the Capitals won the series and went on to lift the Stanley Cup.

Andre Burakovsky looks back now and acknowledges he and the Capitals got some lucky bounces on the way to their first championship in franchise history. Now with the Colorado Avalanche, he’s well-aware that’s just one part of what it takes for a playoff team to get over the hump and win it all.

“It’s so hard to win the Stanley Cup,” Burakovsky said. “You’re going to need a little bit of luck and you’re going to need everyone in your team to be extremely dialed in and sacrificing and doing whatever it takes to win.”

The NHL is full of title contenders that turn out to be pretenders and plenty of success stories about teams that figure it out and get the job done.

As the playoffs begin Monday night, Burakovsky and the Avalanche, the Carolina Hurricanes and Presidents’ Trophy-winning Florida Panthers are among the teams looking to make the leap – a challenge that is part good health and great luck but more about figuring out how to ride the roller coaster of wins and losses through four rounds.

“Once you commit to something, be it the defensive part of the game or whatever was holding you back and you commit to it and you break through, then it becomes easier because you know what’s there,” said Barry Trotz, who coached the Capitals to the Cup.

“It’s almost like climbing Mount Everest. You want to do it, you think you can do it and then you actually have to do it and you get to a certain place.”