New season New plan.(Stanley Cup hockey playoffs)

What worked during the season might not necessarily work during the playoffs. With this in mind, teams have changed their ways to take one step closer to Lord Stanley's Cup.

Rangers center Mark Messier once said the first round of the playoffs is like the first turn at the Indianapolis 500--lots of crashes. The first round also is when a lot of teams learn just how difficult it is to compete in the postseason.

"You can't be comfortable with the success you enjoyed in the regular season," Messier said. "And you can't relax alter winning just one round because a very different kind of team might be lurking around the corner to take you out in the second round."

So, let this serve as a warning. The storyline changes from one playoff series to the next. For a team to be successful, it has to show more than one identity. Odd-man rushes might not be as plentiful against the next playoff opponent. The defense might be bigger or more mobile in Round 2. The team in the next round might have better penalty killers, squelching the opportunity to win on special teams. Or it might be a better faceoff team than the previous team. Or ...

"I've always thought it was like facing a great pitching staff," says Sabres center Doug Gilmour, who helped the Flames win a Stanley Cup in 1989. "One pitcher might be a hard-throwing, dominant pitcher like Pedro Martinez. Another might be a knuckleballer like Phil Niekro. Another might have a great curveball like Sandy Koufax."

A great performance by a pitcher with a little different look can throw a team's hitters into a slump--just like the play of goaltenders such as Ed Belfour, Martin Brodeur, Patrick Roy or Dominik Hasek.

"Our game plan against Philadelphia was to get in deep on their defensemen and force them to make mistakes," Gilmour says. "Against Pittsburgh, we can't be quite so aggressive because of the speed and skill Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Alexei Kovalev ... bring to the rink. Against speed teams, you usually have to set up your defense in the neutral zone and try to keep them from getting up speed going into your zone.