In theory, the question suits me well.
If the Panthers lose Game 7 on Monday, will it be the biggest collapse in NHL history?
It’s the kind of history-based debate I’m often at. In fact, when it became clear that the Oilers were going to make a series of this Stanley Cup Final, I started thinking about what this piece might look like. If you’ve been reading me over the years, you can probably imagine how it would be distributed. We would pose the question and then list a group of possible contenders for the honors. We’d weigh the pros and cons, put everything in historical context, throw out some one-liners, and then come to a conclusion about 2,000 words later.
The problem is, when it comes to this Panthers collapse being the worst of all time, I don’t have 2,000 words for you. I do not need them.
I only need one: Yes. And then a few more: it’s not even close.
Believe me, I tried. I reviewed the history of teams that blew leads. But there’s no reasonable argument that anything in NHL history comes close to what we might be about to see.
Let’s start with the obvious comparison: the 1942 Stanley Cup Final, the only time a team came back from 3-0 down to win a championship. By the way, that’s not just in the NHL: it’s the only time it’s happened in the history of the MLB, NBA or NHL. That year, the Maple Leafs came back to beat the Red Wings.
That works? Not precisely. Leaving aside that we are talking about more than eight decades ago, a series that practically no one reading this will remember having seen. The early 1940s were also in the midst of a World War, in which many of the world’s best young athletes were called up to serve overseas. The NHL MVP in 1942 was Tom Anderson. The points leader was Bryan Hextall. This wasn’t even the era of the Original Six, because it hadn’t begun yet. I love NHL history as much as almost anyone, and even I’m not going to pretend there’s any kind of comparison here.
Plus, those 1942 Red Wings weren’t very good. They had finished fifth in a seven-team league, with a record well below .500, and had made the finals only because of the league’s extremely strange playoff format. They were probably just happy to be there. Unlike, say, the Panthers, a team that spent weeks telling us how they promised themselves they would come back to the finals and finish the job.
So 1942 is over. But the problem is, once you do that, you’re really left with no realistic options. The Islanders were the next team to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a series, in 1975 against the Penguins. That was a matchup between a pair of recent expansion teams. It was a big win for the Islanders, sure, and a bad loss for the Penguins. But it was the quarterfinals. It’s not in the same ballpark.
Did the Bruins lose to the Flyers in 2010? No. That was also in Round 2, and while it had the added pathos of Game 4 going to overtime, not to mention the Bruins were up 3-0 in Game 7 and blew it too, it wasn’t the final . Neither was the Kings’ victory over the Sharks in 2014. That may have been the most devastating collapse of the modern era, given all the weight of anguish the Sharks carried on their shoulders, but it was a first-round series. Next.
Except there’s no next one, at least as far as the 3-0 series is concerned. We just covered the whole story. And none of that is even close to what’s happening now.
Of course, a collapse doesn’t have to be from a 3-0 deficit. Open up the definition a bit and we can talk about some of the teams that have blown 3-1 leads, including the Bruins, last year’s Presidents’ Trophy winners, against these same Panthers. There was the Leafs losing to the Habs in 2021, or the Flyers against the Devils in the Eric Lindros/Scott Stevens series in 2000, or any number of Washington Capitals collapses. Perhaps the best candidate would be the Golden Knights’ loss to the Sharks in 2019, that famous game in which they blew a 4-0 lead in the third period.
Broaden the scope even further and you could mention the 2011 Canucks blowing a 2-0 lead to the Bruins in the finals, or the Red Wings doing the same to the Penguins as they chased back-to-back Cups. We could even get into individual games, like the Miracle in Manchester or It Was 4-1 or the Monday Night Miracle.
All of those losses were devastating — the kind of absolute gut punches that some fans aren’t ready to talk about yet. Those losses can make you cry. They may make you reevaluate your fandom. They can leave lasting psychological scars.
But they’re not blowing a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final as they seek their franchise’s first championship, in a connected era where everyone can watch and hot takes will fly.
Biggest collapse in NHL history? Maybe it’s the wrong question. What about the greatest in sports history, period?
That’s closer to a debate. I don’t think the NBA or even MLB can offer anything like that, although Red Sox and Yankees fans might disagree. The NFL could make a case for the Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead in Super Bowl LI. I don’t know enough about football or other sports, so maybe someone can argue. Has an Olympic gold medal race ever ended with someone tripping over their own shoelaces and falling flat on their face right at the finish line?
I don’t know. I am not an expert in sports history. But I do know the history of the NHL and I know that this one is not even close. What we are witnessing is the biggest collapse in league history, by a mile.
That is…if it happens.
That’s the warning about the size of the Stanley Cup. The Panthers are collapsing, which means they haven’t done it yet. There is still Game 7, at home. That’s what you earn playing all year long, or so they say. The Oilers have won three straight, but three doesn’t make four, as the Panthers are eminently qualified to say right now.
So that’s what’s at stake on Monday. The Panthers win, and we all joke about how it was never in doubt as the Stanley Cup is played on the rink in Florida and a new generation of hockey fans are formed. Or they lose and go to the top of the most miserable list you can make. There is no middle ground here anymore.
The worst collapse of all time? There is no doubt. Except for one: Can the Panthers get the win they need, in their last chance to avoid infamy?
(Photo: Curtis Comeau / Icon Sportswire via /Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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