Blown Leads in Game 7
- Thread starter The Panther
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blood gin
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- Jan 17, 2017
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1987 Flyers ha a 3-0 lead on the Capitals in round 1 but the Caps rallied to win in OT on a Dale Hunter goal. The Caps comeback wasn't all late-ish in the 3rd period though. Still impressive
Canadiens1958
Registered User
2010.Boston had a 3-0 lead in games on Philly and a 3-0 lead in goals in game 7 but lost the second round series and game 7,4-3.
BigBadBruins7708
Registered User
you missed a painful one...
2010 Bruins v Flyers
not only was it a 3-0 series comeback, the Bruins jumped out 3-0 in the 1st period of game 7...lost 4-3
The Panther
Registered User
Just a small correction, that was in 1988. But yeah, I remember that Dale Hunter goal...
ChiefWiggum
Registered User
I saw on SportsCenter today that the 2013 Bruins and the 2019 Sharks are the only two teams to overcome a three goal deficit in the third period to win in game 7.
Sentinel
Registered User
I am trying to remember if the 1998 Blues-Kings game, when Kings gave up four goals on the same PP, was Game 7 or not...
GlitchMarner
Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
ted2019
History of Hockey
VanIslander
A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
Look. In 1995 the Pens were the first franchise to have ever beaten another franchise (Caps) twice after trailing 1-3 in games. (They, in later years with a new generation went on to win both other 7-game series Pittsburgh-Washington ever played.)
That said, in 1996 the Caps were defensively excellent and determined not to blow another lead against Lemieux, Jagr and the rest of the Penguins. Washington won the first two games in Pittsburgh, lost the third at home and were tied in 4OT in game 4 with the chance for another 3-1 lead against their nemesis. I was in grad school and watched the game in a restaurant (they stayed open to accommodate the overtime). My Caps shut down Mario and Jagr... but in 4OT the third Pens talent Petr Nedved scored to tie the series - the Caps players and us fans looked devastated because it marked the turning point. The series was then tied 2-2 but we knew we had already lost the series.
The point is: some series are lost by comebacks BEFORE Game 7. Equally devastating.
That said, in 1996 the Caps were defensively excellent and determined not to blow another lead against Lemieux, Jagr and the rest of the Penguins. Washington won the first two games in Pittsburgh, lost the third at home and were tied in 4OT in game 4 with the chance for another 3-1 lead against their nemesis. I was in grad school and watched the game in a restaurant (they stayed open to accommodate the overtime). My Caps shut down Mario and Jagr... but in 4OT the third Pens talent Petr Nedved scored to tie the series - the Caps players and us fans looked devastated because it marked the turning point. The series was then tied 2-2 but we knew we had already lost the series.
The point is: some series are lost by comebacks BEFORE Game 7. Equally devastating.
The Panther
Registered User
Did the three-goal blown lead in game seven never happen back in the 40s, 50s, 60s? Of course in lower-scoring situations it's less likely, but I would have thought at least once or twice...
MarkusNaslund19
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Canadiens1958
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Bear of Bad News
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Teams today know how to play defensive hockey. You're fooling yourself if you think that Original 6 teams had some innate ability to preserve a lead that today's players can't figure out.
With more rounds of playoffs in the post-O6 era, there are more Games Seven, and more opportunities for this to occur. That's why it occurs more often.
Using this list as gospel (haven't done a rigorous audit):
List of NHL game sevens - Wikipedia
There were 18 Games Seven in the O6 era.
There have been 157 Games Seven in the post-O6 era.
It's because there are more opportunities to blow Game Seven leads, not because great O6 teams are defensive superstars.
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Czech Your Math
I am lizard king
In '96, Pens pulled Barrasso for Wreggett after first period. Caps were up 2-0 near end of 2nd period, Jagr scored SH goal to cut deficit to 2-1, then Lemieux was tossed for instigating a fight. Nedved scored the goals to tie it in third and win it in 4OT.
In '95, Caps were up 3-1 in series, led game five 2-0 and Pens never led game until OT.
The Panther
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Canadiens1958
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Caps blew a 2-0 lead last night,losing game 7 in OT to the Hurricanes. Watch the winning goal by McGinn. Backstrom and Ovechkin disappear up ice from the defensive zone faceoff. Wilson neglects to neutralize McGinn's stickside making it easier for McGinn to score. Game and series over.
The Panther
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blood gin
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It wasn't a game 7 but it was a deciding game (back then best of 5), I think 1985 the Nordiques came back from 5-3 down in the 3rd to beat Buffalo 6-5. Kind of an under the radar choke that doesn't get talked about much
Backstrom definitely doesn't disappear anywhere. He vacates his proper defensive position to transition to offence as the puck comes around to Wilson on the half-wall. Wilson flubs the puck and now he's caught out of position on the wall. Backstrom continues up high covering for Wilson, knowing his winger is caught both down low and on the wall. Wilson subsequently continues to the front of the net to assume Backstrom's defensive responsibility. If Wilson didn't miss a puck which he should control, this sequence wouldn't have occurred.
Ovechkin definitely blows the zone early, likely thinking he was getting a quick transition pass from Backstrom, in sequence from Wilson. That clearly didn't happen. Ovechkin appears to be uninspired and coasting while coming back into defensive positioning, but every available offensive player below him already has coverage in that situation. Despite how unengaged he appears, he's relatively in the appropriate position should the puck come loose or move up to the point. Same for Backstrom, who's currently playing wing coverage.
YoSoyLalo
me reading HF
In 2009 the Devils had a late lead against the Canes in game 7 of the first round. They gave up two goals in the final 1:20 to go from up 3-2 to down 4-3.
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
Come on now... you're excusing the inexcusable. This was a awful, simply awful.
Ovechkin blew the zone early, that's for sure. I can't see where Pesce is because he's out of the frame. If the puck had moved across to RD and Pesce generated the offensive opportunity that won the game, Ovechkin would bear responsibility. I don't see Backstrom executing anything incorrectly, expect for attempting to cover for Wilson's mistake. If you can provide a differing explanation, I'll surely examine it and revise as necessary. I'm unsure what you expect Ovechkin and Backstrom to do in this situation. Do they swiftly get below the dots to appear like they're trying hard and leave the points wide open? If so, D1 and D2 will assuredly have plenty of time to generate offense, provided the opportunity. From my perspective, if we are looking to assess blame in this situation, Tom Wilson appears to remain your candidate - twice.
That said, I don't know if it's reasonable to criticize Wilson. Everyone's completely exhausted by that point in the game and the mind tends to make increasingly poor decisions as exhaustion compounds. In addition, Carolina also thoroughly outplayed Washington throughout overtime. Barring a lucky bounce for Washington, it appeared inevitable that Carolina was coming away with the victory last night.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Let's just take this from the top if this is where we actually want to go...
Pretty clean DZ faceoff win. Puck slapped into the corner as designed for Orlov, Niskanen widens out to start out against the flow of Hurricanes. Wilson is fixin' to support that.
Niskanen - who had a rough night - gets a little bit of a bouncing disc and as a result, he can't peel the puck off the boards as clean as he'd like. He finally does last second and fires a pass right to the point where Wilson's stick is meeting the boards - that's a tough place to catch a pass. The puck skips between his stick and his feet as he was a little too quick to go about it. He feels the pressure to get this pass and start transition (in general, but also I imagine Ovechkin is yelling for this puck already), but in a game that was a ping pong match for the better part of the last 45 game minutes, Wilson is not totally safe, and he'll soon be sorry.
Backstrom immediately jumps up to fill the RW role that Wilson would ordinarily fill. Ovechkin has completely flown the zone. Vintage Ovechkin where he'll get a chance to carry the puck through the NZ in a 1 on 1 situation against a defenseman that has positional integrity. That has failed him in the past (Girardi, et al.), this mindset failed him tonight as well...as he played a defenseman's worth of minutes but was not terribly effective outside of causing Dougie Hamilton to fill his diaper (once again) and then an oddly bad play from the remarkable Jaccob Slavin (early Conn Smythe watchlist) to try to cover for Hamilton's very unclean ass.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...with the LW Ovechkin out of the zone, Slavin puts the puck into the Washington left side/Carolina right side knowing that they'll have a numerical advantage.
Justin Williams, who started the forechecking play off the lost draw by applying pressure to a not overly poised Niskanen, is first on the scene. Like he did all night, he grabbed the puck and threw it at the net. The sides have flipped as a result of the sudden change versus the flow and RW Williams has his shot fronted by RD Niskanen.
Orlov is in the near lane with a stick on a rather non-threatening Sebastian Aho who is really just cruising through to support a cycle play - which given how the night was - that was the expected play. The play that would have developed knowing what I know about Aho and Williams would have resulted in Aho cutting back against the inside of a trailing Orlov and feeding one back on his forehand to the strong side post for Williams to throw over Holtby's glove and win me hundreds of dollars (as I had bet Williams GWG at 14:1)...insteadddddd...
The play happens quick and the inexperienced defensive net front man Tom Wilson only has body positioning, but does not have the industrious Brock McGinn's stick. With an unmolested stick, McGinn is able to win the series for the fairly heavy underdog.
A more experienced support center like Backstrom - though soft as a human with his dad bod, is very handy with his stick positioning as a rule - offensively and defensively, he makes room with subtle stick picks quite often. Whether he would have gotten McGinn's stick we'll never know, but he's a LHS, and likely would have come up on his backside to stick lift in exchange for trying to make a box out play (or some faux version of it) like Slick Willy did...
You can't be too upset with Ovechkin because this is who he is...this isn't new or unexpected behavior. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Like in most of the other playoff failures, Ovechkin cheats to compensate for the lackluster puck carrying ability of Nicklas Backstrom relative to Evgeny Kuznetsov (who was a pumpkin in the series). Savvy observers wondered why all of a sudden the Caps were able to win a series in 2018, well part of it (a huge part of it) is they were able to get away from this exact situation...Kuznetsov could carry pucks across lines in the middle of the rink, Kuzy is a much more balanced offensive player in a more advantageous position...as opposed to most of 13 years of Ovechkin, a RHS, carrying it up the LW without being a terribly strong playmaker as far as elite players go. Limited options there and a player who - as we see - is better served being as a finishing option more than a starting option for plays.
Ovechkin a NZ puck carrier and distributor, Wilson the F1/support center near the net, Backstrom as a winger...players in uncomfortable situations and/or less than ideal conditions don't tend to play at 100% capacity. Thus, they are more prone to fail. It's the anatomy of a goal and a small piece of the anatomical makeup of the larger team concept.
Pretty clean DZ faceoff win. Puck slapped into the corner as designed for Orlov, Niskanen widens out to start out against the flow of Hurricanes. Wilson is fixin' to support that.
Niskanen - who had a rough night - gets a little bit of a bouncing disc and as a result, he can't peel the puck off the boards as clean as he'd like. He finally does last second and fires a pass right to the point where Wilson's stick is meeting the boards - that's a tough place to catch a pass. The puck skips between his stick and his feet as he was a little too quick to go about it. He feels the pressure to get this pass and start transition (in general, but also I imagine Ovechkin is yelling for this puck already), but in a game that was a ping pong match for the better part of the last 45 game minutes, Wilson is not totally safe, and he'll soon be sorry.
Backstrom immediately jumps up to fill the RW role that Wilson would ordinarily fill. Ovechkin has completely flown the zone. Vintage Ovechkin where he'll get a chance to carry the puck through the NZ in a 1 on 1 situation against a defenseman that has positional integrity. That has failed him in the past (Girardi, et al.), this mindset failed him tonight as well...as he played a defenseman's worth of minutes but was not terribly effective outside of causing Dougie Hamilton to fill his diaper (once again) and then an oddly bad play from the remarkable Jaccob Slavin (early Conn Smythe watchlist) to try to cover for Hamilton's very unclean ass.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...with the LW Ovechkin out of the zone, Slavin puts the puck into the Washington left side/Carolina right side knowing that they'll have a numerical advantage.
Justin Williams, who started the forechecking play off the lost draw by applying pressure to a not overly poised Niskanen, is first on the scene. Like he did all night, he grabbed the puck and threw it at the net. The sides have flipped as a result of the sudden change versus the flow and RW Williams has his shot fronted by RD Niskanen.
Orlov is in the near lane with a stick on a rather non-threatening Sebastian Aho who is really just cruising through to support a cycle play - which given how the night was - that was the expected play. The play that would have developed knowing what I know about Aho and Williams would have resulted in Aho cutting back against the inside of a trailing Orlov and feeding one back on his forehand to the strong side post for Williams to throw over Holtby's glove and win me hundreds of dollars (as I had bet Williams GWG at 14:1)...insteadddddd...
The play happens quick and the inexperienced defensive net front man Tom Wilson only has body positioning, but does not have the industrious Brock McGinn's stick. With an unmolested stick, McGinn is able to win the series for the fairly heavy underdog.
A more experienced support center like Backstrom - though soft as a human with his dad bod, is very handy with his stick positioning as a rule - offensively and defensively, he makes room with subtle stick picks quite often. Whether he would have gotten McGinn's stick we'll never know, but he's a LHS, and likely would have come up on his backside to stick lift in exchange for trying to make a box out play (or some faux version of it) like Slick Willy did...
You can't be too upset with Ovechkin because this is who he is...this isn't new or unexpected behavior. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Like in most of the other playoff failures, Ovechkin cheats to compensate for the lackluster puck carrying ability of Nicklas Backstrom relative to Evgeny Kuznetsov (who was a pumpkin in the series). Savvy observers wondered why all of a sudden the Caps were able to win a series in 2018, well part of it (a huge part of it) is they were able to get away from this exact situation...Kuznetsov could carry pucks across lines in the middle of the rink, Kuzy is a much more balanced offensive player in a more advantageous position...as opposed to most of 13 years of Ovechkin, a RHS, carrying it up the LW without being a terribly strong playmaker as far as elite players go. Limited options there and a player who - as we see - is better served being as a finishing option more than a starting option for plays.
Ovechkin a NZ puck carrier and distributor, Wilson the F1/support center near the net, Backstrom as a winger...players in uncomfortable situations and/or less than ideal conditions don't tend to play at 100% capacity. Thus, they are more prone to fail. It's the anatomy of a goal and a small piece of the anatomical makeup of the larger team concept.
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