The bizarre start of the 2017 Cup final

Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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Okay, so has there been a weirder start for a team that actually won the Cup? Enter the Pens. They are reigning champs, they lost Letang for the whole postseason and to be honest there were times it looked like their defense was just running out of gas. I honestly think if there were 5 playoff rounds they would have just run out of gas regardless of who they were playing. He ate up 30 minutes of ice time and they just didn't have that replacement on the back end. This was a postseason where Crosby and Malkin took the bull by the horns more than usual and more than the previous year.

Plus they played a tough 7 game series vs. Washington and then another 7 gamer vs. Ottawa surprisingly that needed overtime to finish it off. They were gassed.

But in Game 1 they won 5-3. Looks normal right? Wrong. They had 11 shots, NONE in the 2nd period and if I remember correctly they went over 30 minutes without a shot. Then with the score tied 3-3 they score a late goal and then add an empty netter. Bad game by Pekka Rinne in net, but what a game to lose.

Game 2 they get their legs back a bit, but are still sluggish. They are outshot 38-27 and win the game 4-1 with three 3rd period goals. They still look like they are running on fumes. They lose the next to in Nashville and then in Game 5 is when they finally look like the Penguins as expected, winning 6-0 and having a big game by Crosby. Game 6 they ice it 2-0.

So here is the question, has there been a time when a team played so poorly in the first game or two (especially in Game 1) and still won and then won the Cup? I've never seen a team look so bad in Game 1 that actually won in the Cup final.
 

The Panther

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Mar 25, 2014
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So here is the question, has there been a time when a team played so poorly in the first game or two (especially in Game 1) and still won and then won the Cup? I've never seen a team look so bad in Game 1 that actually won in the Cup final.
Yes, the 1985 Final, game one. This series started at the Spectrum, where the Oilers had never looked good, and they were thumped 4-1 in game one, and out-shot 41 to 26. The only Oiler to bag a goal was Willy Lindstrom with three minutes left. Lindbergh stopped 25 of 26 shots (Gretzky didn't get a single shot on net). Tim Kerr had 6 shots on net. Howe and Crossman were +3. I think some of the Oilers described it as the worst playoff game they'd ever played.

There was actually 'talk' after this game that the Spectrum staff had conspired to make the ice-surface unusually choppy and mushy to favor the Flyers and slow-down the Oilers. (I will assume that is total nonsense.)

It remained a close series after game one, but Gretzky went into God-mode and the Oil pulled off four straight win to take it.
 

Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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Yes, the 1985 Final, game one. This series started at the Spectrum, where the Oilers had never looked good, and they were thumped 4-1 in game one, and out-shot 41 to 26. The only Oiler to bag a goal was Willy Lindstrom with three minutes left. Lindbergh stopped 25 of 26 shots (Gretzky didn't get a single shot on net). Tim Kerr had 6 shots on net. Howe and Crossman were +3. I think some of the Oilers described it as the worst playoff game they'd ever played.

There was actually 'talk' after this game that the Spectrum staff had conspired to make the ice-surface unusually choppy and mushy to favor the Flyers and slow-down the Oilers. (I will assume that is total nonsense.)

It remained a close series after game one, but Gretzky went into God-mode and the Oil pulled off four straight win to take it.

I mean..................maybe? If any team is capable of that it would be the Flyers at the Spectrum. But the truth is that despite the Oilers sweeping the first two rounds they had a historically goal-filled 6 game series against Chicago just before this and perhaps it wore them out a bit for Game 1. 5 days before the final though, so you'd think there'd be time to rest.
 

Hobnobs

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Nov 29, 2011
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Does habs first game in 86 count? The shot totals are mo equal between the teams but iirc that Habs team looked like they were going to waste that cinderella run before winning the next four games.
 

Czech Your Math

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How about 2009? The NHL decided to push the finals up several days, which seemed highly unusual from my recollection, so Wing were without Datsyuk & Draper for first 3-4 games (wasn't Lidstrom ailing too?). Detroit wins the first two games by identical 3-1 scores and the series appears about over, with Pittsburgh showing the most life AFTER game 2 when Malkin initiated a scuffle and wasn't suspended. Wings were up 2-1 in game 3 when the refs missed a blatant penalty for too many men (for 20-25 sec.). Pens came back and won the game and series.
 

Vujtek

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Oct 7, 2007
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But in Game 1 they won 5-3. Looks normal right? Wrong. They had 11 shots, NONE in the 2nd period and if I remember correctly they went over 30 minutes without a shot. Then with the score tied 3-3 they score a late goal and then add an empty netter. Bad game by Pekka Rinne in net, but what a game to lose.

The shot totals in that game are the extreme reflection of the score effect. Penguins got a 3-0 lead in the first period and then started sitting back on their lead and defend it. That obviously shows in the shot totals then, although it went on to the extremes in that game. While the Preds piled up on those shots, I seem to remember Pens doing pretty good job holding them off on prime scoring chances on that game. These are always tough games to judge as obviously sitting back on the lead like that and then having the opponent come back to tie it up (which often happens when you start to only defend your lead for two periods) isn't a good look, but they showed resilience and got the win in the end. You can say Pens did just enough to win the game and that's really all that matters in the playoffs.

I'll also add that Pens led the game 3-1 after two periods and controlled the play in the first 10 minutes of the 3rd period (despite no shots on goal) but a bad penalty led to Preds score on PP and then they got back in the game. Outside of that penalty, they were doing good job on defending the lead. But like I said, they sat back too much and when you do that only one bad play like that can be crucial in the game. In that game it didn't end up backfiring for Pens though.
 
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Sadekuuro

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Aug 23, 2005
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Rinne picked a bad time to lay an egg, that's for sure. Nashville absolutely should have won Game 1.

I would like to have seen a Game 6 where both goals counted, not just Hornqvist's.
 
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Big Phil

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Nov 2, 2003
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Does habs first game in 86 count? The shot totals are mo equal between the teams but iirc that Habs team looked like they were going to waste that cinderella run before winning the next four games.

Funny thing about that series. There is the odd time in a Cup final where the loser outscores the winner. Detroit in 2009, Calgary in 2004 come to mind. But these are minimal and they were 7 game series. Montreal/Calgary in 1986 was a quick 5 game series but Montreal only scored two more goals than Calgary.
 

DrMartinVanNostrand

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Oct 6, 2017
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Unfortunately I didn't write this anywhere online so this is going to sound dubious by default but, seriously, I remember watching that first game of the Preds-Pens series, and towards the end of that 30+ minute stretch of no shots on goal for Pittsburgh, I turned to the person I was watching the game with and said "after this long, their next shot on goal is going to go in", just to highlight the absurdity of that stretch of impotence, and sure enough, about 15 seconds later the Penguins (forget the goal scorer) fired their first shot on goal in 30+ minutes, and it went in.

I would've chuckled if I wasn't rooting for the Preds to win that series. It was more of an anti-jinx attempt that completely backfired.
 

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