NEW YORK — The way Justin Williams looks at it, Game 7s are all about opportunity. Sure, something bad is about to happen for half the players in the building, but when your season is on the line you’ve got to seize on the good instead.

“It’s a mental thing,” Williams told Sportsnet over the phone on Thursday night. “You’ve got to get in your head that you don’t want to be the guy to make the mistake, you want to be the guy to make a difference in a positive manner.

“If you’re worried about making a mistake then you’re going to be on a show 10 years from now where they’re saying ‘this is one of the worst plays in Game 7 history’ or something like that.”

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Williams, of course, has some authority on the matter. The Los Angeles Kings winger is the most accomplished Game 7 player in NHL history with seven goals, seven assists and a 7-0 record over his career.

It’s earned him the nickname “Mr. Game 7.”

Despite being unaccustomed to watching the Stanley Cup playoffs from afar, he’s kept an eye on the conference finals, which will both go the distance for only the third time in history.

Williams sees some parallels between the Rangers and his Kings. Even though New York hasn’t yet put any championship banners in the rafters at Madison Square Garden, the core of the team has won a lot of elimination games together in recent years.

“If you have a couple guys that you’ve won with, or have won, or have been in those situations before, it actually calms you,” said Williams.

“And I think that’s why we’ve had a lot of success because we’ve won as a team in Game 7s. We’ve all won together.

“When you look around the room and see confidence — the guy next to you, the guys across from you — it’s let’s you take a deep breath and say ‘alright we’ve got this.”‘

He figures it should be beneficial for the Rangers when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final on Friday night.

They’ve won six consecutive Game 7s since 2012, with Henrik Lundqvist allowing only five goals in those games. The Lightning, meanwhile, boast the youngest roster in these playoffs and the only Game 7 experience for the majority of the players came in the first round against Detroit.

“The Rangers have obviously had a lot of Game 7 victories and it’s certainly tough to go against them because they’ve had that experience,” said Williams. “They’re going to look around the room and lean on that and say ‘we’ve done this many times, let’s just do it again.’ I think that’s good.

“Teams that are learning to win, they’ve got to eventually do it at some point. Tampa Bay, you never know, right? It could be their time to say ‘this is our time, we’re going to do it, we’re going to learn to win right away, right now, and we’re never going to look back.'”

One thing Williams believes is that the circumstances around a Game 7 rarely matter. He’s been on teams that won at home, and on the road; teams that have come from behind in a series or won after missing out on a couple chances to end things early.

“When I was in Philly (in 2003) we lost a double overtime game against Toronto in Game 6 and then the next night we played Game 7 in Philadelphia,” said Williams. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve won the last game, you lost the last game, momentum. It’s nothing. It’s just going out and you want to do the best you can.

“Most of the time it’s been good enough because I’ve been on a good team and there was a number of guys who were able to rise up and make a difference.”

Williams is a three-time Stanley Cup champion and took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP last spring. He’s played 115 career playoff games.

There is something unique about a Game 7, and the best advice he can offer to other players is freeing your mind in the hours before puck drop.

“The turnover on the game-winning goal, you can’t worry about making those mistakes,” said Williams. “You’ve just got to go out and do it. Trust your instincts, trust how you get there, trust that you’re going to make the right decisions.

“Then whatever happens, happens.”

By the end of the night only three teams will remain in the chase for the Stanley Cup.