from Paul MacLean at the NHL's website,

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2023-24 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.

In this edition, Paul MacLean, former coach of the Ottawa Senators, who won the 2013 Jack Adams Award voted as NHL coach of the year, and assistant with the Anaheim Ducks, Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs, looks at how coaches deal with matchups in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

For coaches, the Stanley Cup Playoffs become a whole different beast, mostly because you only get seven games and in those seven games you're playing against the same team.

Before you get to the playoffs, in your preparation, you define all the things your opponent does well and maybe they don't do well, and you discover the identity of your opponent and their style of play.

Then you look at whether your style is better than theirs and what adjustments you potentially have to make game to game. And the adjustments can go not just game to game, but period to period and a lot of times, it goes shift by shift.

If we're talking about the Los Angeles Kings and the Edmonton Oilers, Connor McDavid's shifts versus somebody are going to be different than Ryan Nugent-Hopkins' shifts against somebody or Derek Ryan's shift against somebody else. They might play those shifts differently and adjust according to who the opponent is and who is on the ice at that time.

It takes a lot of practice from the team and preparation from the coaching staff knowing what things a team must do to counter the opposition and be ready to do it and execute it at the right time.

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