In idea, the query is correct up my alley.
If the Panthers lose Sport 7 on Monday, will or not it’s the largest collapse in NHL historical past?
It’s the type of history-based debate that I’m often throughout. In truth, when it first turned obvious that the Oilers have been going to make a sequence of this Stanley Cup Last, I began fascinated with how this piece might look. If you happen to’ve been studying me over time, you may most likely image how it could be laid out. We’d pose the query, then listing a bunch of potential contenders for the honors. We’d weigh the professionals and cons, placing all of it in historic context, drop a number of one-liners, after which arrive at a conclusion roughly 2,000 phrases later.
The issue is, relating to this Panthers collapse being the worst of all time, I don’t have 2,000 phrases for you. I don’t want them.
I solely want one: Sure. After which a number of extra: It’s not even shut.
Consider me, I attempted. I went again over the historical past of groups blowing leads. However there’s no affordable argument that something in NHL historical past comes near what we could be about to see.
Let’s begin with the apparent comparability: The 1942 Stanley Cup Last, the one different time {that a} group got here again from down 3-0 to win a championship. That’s not simply within the NHL, by the best way — it’s the one time it’s occurred in any of MLB, NBA or NHL historical past. That 12 months, the Maple Leafs got here again to beat the Crimson Wings.
Does that work? Probably not. Put apart that we’re speaking greater than eight many years in the past, a sequence that nearly no one studying this may have any recollection of watching. The early Forties have been additionally the center of a World Warfare, one which noticed lots of the world’s finest younger athletes referred to as to serve abroad. The NHL’s MVP in 1942 was Tom Anderson. The factors chief was Bryan Hextall. This wasn’t even the Unique Six period, as a result of that hadn’t began but. I like NHL historical past as a lot as just about anybody on the market, and even I’m not going to faux that there’s any type of comparability right here.
In addition to, these 1942 Crimson Wings weren’t excellent. They’d completed fifth in a seven-team league, with a document nicely below .500, and had made the ultimate solely because of the league’s extraordinarily unusual playoff format. They have been most likely simply blissful to be there. Not like, say, the Panthers, a group that’s spent weeks telling us about how they’ve promised themselves that they’d make it again to the ultimate and end the job.
So 1942 is out. However the issue is, when you try this, you’re actually all out of reasonable choices. The Islanders have been the subsequent group to come back again from down 3-0 to win a sequence, in 1975 towards the Penguins. That was a matchup between a pair of recent-ish growth groups. It was an enormous win for the Islanders, positive, and a foul loss for the Penguins. However it was the quarter-final. It’s not in the identical ballpark.
The Bruins shedding to the Flyers in 2010? Nope. That one was additionally in Spherical 2, and whereas it had the additional pathos of Sport 4 going to additional time, to not point out the Bruins being up 3-0 in Sport 7 and blowing that too, it wasn’t the ultimate. Neither was the Kings’ win over the Sharks in 2014. That one might have been probably the most devastating collapse of the trendy period, given all the burden of heartbreak the Sharks have been carrying on their shoulders, nevertheless it was a first-round sequence. Subsequent.
Besides there isn’t a subsequent, a minimum of so far as 3-0 sequence are involved. We simply lined all the historical past. And none of it even comes near what’s occurring proper now.
In fact, a collapse doesn’t must be from down 3-0. Open up the definition a bit, and we are able to speak about a number of the groups which have blown 3-1 leads, together with final 12 months’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins to those identical Panthers. There was the Leafs shedding to the Habs in 2021, or the Flyers towards the Devils within the Eric Lindros/Scott Stevens sequence in 2000, or any variety of Washington Capitals collapses. Perhaps the very best candidate could be the Golden Knights shedding to the Sharks in 2019, that well-known recreation the place they blew a 4-0 lead within the third interval.
Increase the scope additional and you would point out the 2011 Canucks blowing a 2-0 result in the Bruins within the last, or the Crimson Wings doing the identical to the Penguins whereas chasing back-to-back Cups. We might even get into particular person video games, just like the Miracle on Manchester or It Was 4-1 or the Monday Night time Miracle.
All these losses have been devastating — the form of absolute intestine punches that some followers nonetheless aren’t prepared to speak about. These losses could make you cry. They’ll make you re-evaluate your fandom. They’ll go away lasting psychological scars.
However they’re not blowing a 3-0 lead within the Stanley Cup Last, whereas searching for your franchise’s first championship, in a wired age the place the entire world can watch and the recent takes shall be flying.
The largest collapse in NHL historical past? Perhaps it’s the unsuitable query. What in regards to the largest in sports activities historical past, interval?
That’s nearer to a debate. I don’t assume the NBA and even MLB can provide one thing shut, though Crimson Sox and Yankees followers may disagree. The NFL might make a case for the Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead in Tremendous Bowl LI. I don’t know sufficient about soccer or different sports activities, so perhaps any person could make an argument. Has an Olympic gold medal race ever ended with somebody tripping over their very own shoelaces and face-planting proper on the end line?
I don’t know. I’m not an knowledgeable on sports activities historical past. However I do know NHL historical past, and I do know this one isn’t shut. What we’re witnessing is the best collapse within the historical past of the league, by a mile.
That’s … if it occurs.
That’s the Stanley Cup-sized caveat right here. The Panthers are collapsing, which implies they haven’t really achieved it but. There’s nonetheless Sport 7, on residence ice. That’s what you play all 12 months lengthy to earn, or so they are saying. The Oilers have gained three straight, however three isn’t 4, because the Panthers are eminently certified to inform you proper now.
So these are the stakes on Monday. The Panthers win, and all of us make jokes about the way it was by no means doubtful because the Stanley Cup will get skated across the Florida rink and a brand new technology of hockey followers is made. Or they lose, and so they go to the very prime of probably the most depressing listing you can also make. There’s no center floor left right here, not anymore.
The worst collapse of all time? There’s no query in any respect. Apart from one: Can the Panthers get the win they want, of their final likelihood to keep away from infamy?
(Picture: Curtis Comeau / Icon Sportswire through Getty Pictures)