Panthers, Oilers one step away from rare playoff history

If you don’t have a dog to hunt with, the choice is easy, right? You’re lining up behind the Oilers on Monday night. He has a chance to join one of the sport’s most elite clubs, the kind that allows teams and fans to dream even in the toughest situations, reminding us of the wisest sports words ever spoken by Yogi Berra. Came from:

“It won’t end until it’s over.”

The Oilers lost in three games. They were dead. They looked spent. He looked amazing. The Florida Panthers, even those trying hard not to invite the wrath of the evil gods, may have already started seeing their name on the Stanley Cup.

Now, it’s 3-3.

Now, Edmonton is trying to become only the sixth team in the history of North American sports to sweep another team in the first three games of a best-of-seven match, then put together the best of a timely and illogical four-game winning streak. Kept together. Year.

The first seven-game series in modern team sports was the New York Giants against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1905. The first time the NHL went to a best-of-seven was in 1919 between the Montreal Canadiens and the original Ottawa Senators. The NBA immediately offered a best-of-seven matchup to the Philadelphia Warriors and Chicago Stags in 1947.

By and large, in all three sports, those series either end in sweeps or, as in the case of the three examples above, one of the four games ends with a “gentleman’s sweep” – the Giants, Canadiens and The Warriors all won early bests. -Seven this way, 4-1.

Sometimes, a team may increase this to six. Remarkably, it took baseball until 1999 before this happened, the Mets blew a 3–0 lead to the Braves, won Games 4 and 5, and then Kenny Rogers lost in the strike zone in Game 6.

And even on rare occasions, a Game 7 occurs.

As you’ll recall, this has happened exactly once in baseball. That was 2004. It was the Yankees, up 3-0, 19-8 winners in Game 3, three outs away from an extremely rough sweep, Mariano Rivera on the mound and… well, I won’t finish this drive – Yankees. By fans who haven’t yet thrown their newspaper or iPhone across the room.

This has only happened four times in the NBA, most recently last year when the Celtics battled back against the Heat in the East Finals before somehow surrendering in Game 7 at home. The Trail Blazers stunned Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks in a 2003 first-round series, and the Nuggets did the same to the Jazz in 1994, becoming Denver’s first No. 8 seed in a second-round series by one round. Pick out a number 1.

The closest an NBA team came to a comeback was in 1951, the Knicks and the Rochester Royals, with the Knicks going 3–0 (thanks in part, the Knicks had to move their home games – remarkably – from the old Madison Square Garden. to the 69th Regiment Armoury). But they came back strongly and took a 74–73 lead before losing 79–75 with two minutes to go in Game 7 at Edgerton Park Arena in Rochester.

Not surprisingly, this is the 10th time an NHL team has gone from 0-3 to 3-3, which isn’t surprising because hockey is naturally prone to more unique fads than any other sport. The secret is (hot goalie, extreme pace changes, awkward bounces in odd spots).

Four teams have completed the deal. The 1942 Maple Leafs first accomplished this feat in the 1942 Cup Finals (before the Red Wings paid them back in kind nearly three years later). The 2011 Bruins not only blew a 3–0 lead in games, but blew a 3–0 lead to the Flyers in Game 7. The 2014 Kings bounced back against San Jose (and carried that good cheer to a Cup).

And of course there were the 1975 Islanders, who not only came back from 3–0 down to defeat the Penguins in the Cup quarterfinals, but also forced a Game 7, 4, loss against the defending-champion Flyers in the semi-finals. -1.

“It wasn’t just trying to win one game at a time or one period at a time,” Islanders colleague Chico Resch told me a few years ago. “It was one shift at a time. One minute at a time. You can’t do big things unless you do small things.”

The Oilers already know that part. Still, the hardest step lies in the waiting. Five of the last nine NHL teams that came so dangerously close couldn’t complete the deal, including the 1939 Rangers, and that usually resulted in a blowout more than a sweep. After falling 3–0 to the Bruins in the Cup semifinals, the Blueshirts won 2–1, 2–1, and 3–1 before playing Game 7 at the Boston Garden.

They were tied at the end of regulation. Tied after one overtime. Tied after two. Then Mel Hill scored eight minutes into the third OT, the Bruins won 2–1, and Rangers coach Lester Patrick was prompted to say, “I’m not sure when I stopped feeling sick about this.” I will.”

If the Oilers lose, they’ll learn a lot.