NHL Playoffs 2012: L.A. Kings' Roster Has Abundant Cinderella Experience

Los Angeles Kings head coach Darryl Sutter is in the midst of his longest Stanley Cup playoff run since 2004, when his sixth-seeded Calgary Flames dislodged all three of the Western Conference’s division champions.

Starting Sunday night with Game 1 of the conference finals, Sutter will try to get his new pupils to accomplish the same feat. The eighth-seeded Kings have already pinned the Presidents' Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks and Central Division-winning St. Louis Blues.

Three of Sutter’s players have similarly partaken in unforeseen runs to the Stanley Cup final, albeit each in a shortcoming cause, just as the 2004 Flames were when they submitted to Tampa Bay in Game 7.

For the second time in their careers, Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene are in the NHL’s final four. And both times, they have reached this round with a team that claimed the last available playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Stoll’s sophomore season and Greene’s rookie year in The Show were highlighted by the Edmonton Oilers’ conquest of the top-dog Detroit Red Wings, as well as the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

But not unlike their provincial rivals two years prior, the Oilers sputtered in the cup final to the Carolina Hurricanes, featuring another current King in Justin Williams.

More recently, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter co-piloted the Philadelphia Flyers on a run through the 2010 playoffs that was not even assured until they prevailed in a shootout in their regular-season finale versus the New York Rangers.

Upon cementing the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference, though, the Flyers went on a 12-5 run to the Prince of Wales Trophy and pushed the better-equipped Chicago Blackhawks to six games before succumbing in the final.

The 2004 Flames, 2006 Oilers and 2010 Flyers are the last three teams to have reached the cup championship series after lacking home ice for the majority of the first round. The consistent pattern in their ultimate fate speaks for itself, especially when joined by the likes of the 2003 Mighty Ducks, 2002 Hurricanes and 1999 Buffalo Sabres.

But given that some projected them to finish in the upper echelon of the Western Conference and their .622 winning percentage after bringing Sutter behind the bench in mid-December, the Kings could have the requisite parts to reverse that trend.

In addition, with a head coach and four players who have all lived the bittersweet version of the Cinderella story, there is ample reason to think L.A. could use that collective experience to its benefit.

But that is only assuming the Kings get the better of the Phoenix Coyotes, another unlikely Western Conference finalist.