ANAHEIM – The general manager took care of the shopping for the ingredients needed to create a memorable dinner. Now all the coach has to do is put a winning recipe together and not burn it.

This is the time to which Ducks GM Bob Murray has pointed an entire season. This is the moment that Coach Bruce Boudreau has navigated his team through an 82-game grind toward, doing so again with remarkable success.

Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs finally arrives Thursday night for the Ducks, who will open their first-round series against the upstart Winnipeg Jets. And with that begins the latest referendum on Boudreau and whether he can get his team to hoist the coveted Cup at the end.

It is a well-worn story with Boudreau but one that continues to be told. Tremendous regular seasons followed by playoff failures. The same tale written first in Washington has been repeated in Anaheim.

Two straight marches to the Pacific Division title have ended in Game 7 defeats on home ice in the first and second rounds, respectively. Boudreau now has a third on his Ducks watch, along with the top seed in the Western Conference for a second consecutive postseason.

And yet the questions of his championship-level capability behind the bench won’t cease until a different script is created – to which he’s painfully aware.

“It won’t go away,” Boudreau said, then switched briefly to the third person. “Bruce would love to go through a summer without having the same questions asked about him. We’ll do everything we can to prepare the team. And hopefully we’ll succeed.”

It could be different this year. It had better be.

The stakes are even higher. Murray responded to last year’s crushing 6-2 loss to the eventual Cup champion Kings by trading for second-line center Ryan Kesler and fourth-line pivot Nate Thompson along with signing defenseman Clayton Stoner.

Those major moves were to inject a healthy dose of grit and toughness. And to make the Ducks more adaptable to other contenders in the West, Murray made several deals at the March trade deadline to deepen the forward group and defense corps.

It has led stars Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry to say that they have their best look at a Cup since the 2007 triumph. Boudreau agrees that there are better pieces he has at his disposal to go on a championship run.

“And I love the guys who have gone that helped on previous teams,” Boudreau said. “I think this is the deepest team. We didn’t have as good a record as last year’s team in the end. But I think overall, when you look at the two goalies having an extra year of experience, the depth of our defense, the forwards – I don’t know if it’s good enough but I do know that it’s as good or better than what we’ve had in the past.”

More than anything, Boudreau wants to experience what the Kings’ Darryl Sutter had in two of the previous three seasons. Or what Chicago’s Joel Quenneville did in 2010 and 2013. Or Boston’s Claude Julien in 2011. Mike Babcock. Dan Bylsma. Randy Carlyle.

His players see how badly their coach wants a new ending. And how he’s evolved.

“We don’t talk about it,” Getzlaf said. “Obviously he wants it. Nobody wants to hear that about themselves when you talk about being a playoff performer. And that goes for coaches, too. That’s not just players.

“Everybody wants to perform on the big stage. I think he expects that of himself. I think he’s learned a lot the last couple of years about accountability and staying calm in situations. Really reading the team. We’ll see how it goes.”

But another early exit is not part of the plan. Is this a do-or-die postseason for Boudreau? The likable 60-year-old coach is among those who Murray will take a close look at to see if they’ll sink or soar.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been asked this,” Murray said. “This is our third year with this group. There’s a lot of people I’m going to be watching very closely and observing how they play this year, how they react. Player, coach, whatever.

“There’s a lot of people I’m watching to see what happens this year. They’ve had some experience. It’s time. And that’s why I’m watching, why I’m observing. A lot of people.”

Signed to a two-year extension just before this season, Boudreau said he can’t be concerned with whether these playoffs are also about coaching for his future with the Ducks. His regular-season record with them is 162-79-29, his playoff mark is 10-10.

“I try not to think of that,” Boudreau said. “I just try to go through the process. I’ve been lucky in my life that I want to achieve the ultimate goal. But at the same time, things have worked out.

“If you start worrying about where your future lies and what happens … I got to just go and hopefully we succeed. I don’t try to think in failure terms at all. Everything we do is based upon succeed and visualize the benefits of succeeding.”

Murray and Boudreau talk daily, covering many issues in the moment and for the future. When it comes to this time of the year, the longtime Ducks executive is more in the mode of making himself and his staff available for discussions than calling for them.

“You get to know your coach,” Murray said. “They’re all different. And there’s times when you should talk to them and times when you know you leave them alone and wait until a better time to talk to them.

“There’s times with tough losses and things where it’s just best you wait until the sun comes up tomorrow and you talk about things going forward. We talk enough.”

The players want to win for themselves and not necessarily their coach. But they’re also firm in their belief in Boudreau.

Perry praises how the “personable” Boudreau handles his players and keeps an open door for them. After his trade, Thompson looked forward to playing for him and said “the most impressive thing is how he’s able to get the most out of guys.”

Kesler compared Boudreau to Alain Vigneault, his longtime coach in Vancouver, in being demanding “but you could have a conversation and really sit down and talk to them.” The center’s view is they’re all in this together.

“It’s a team thing,” Kesler said. “He has to bring his ‘A’ game just as much as we have to bring our ‘A’ game. When we do that, our team – you see the results out there.”

As far as the criticism that Boudreau gets, Getzlaf defiantly said, “The guy’s done nothing but win.”

“If we score in Game 7 more than (the Kings) do, all of a sudden Bruce is a hero and he’s the greatest coach in the world,” he added. “It shouldn’t affect the way he does his job or the way we respond to him. He gets us prepared the way we need to be prepared.”

It is time for the chef to create a masterpiece worth savoring. Or something that needs to be thrown away.

Contact the writer: estephens@ocregister.com