After starting the second round with three straight losses, the Carolina Hurricanes officially entered the series with thrilling back-to-back victories in Games 4 and 5.
It’s more like what many expected from this series before it began: a tight, hard-fought battle between the two titans of the Metropolitan Division. While that certainly was the case on the ice with three one-goal games to begin with, the series score obviously told a different story.
Thursday night in Game 6, the Hurricanes have a real chance to flip the script, as they will be relative home favorites to push the series to Game 7 with a third straight win.
It might be a nauseating thought for Rangers fans, but it’s a rare treat for hockey fans in general. It would be the first time since 2014 that a team forced a Game 7 after starting a series down 3-0, when the Los Angeles Kings rallied in the first round to eliminate the San Jose Sharks.
That an entire decade has passed since the last such case is wilder than it seems at first glance.
There may be nothing more exciting in sports than a comeback, a scrappy team returning from the dead against all odds. Taking it game by game, hockey fans have been blessed in that department over the past few seasons. The “most dangerous edge in hockey” remains, but it also extends to three- and four-goal pads, which have evaporated at a much higher rate in recent years. In this sport, truly, no advantage is certain.
Yet that growing comeback mentality didn’t extend to the playoff series. In the last decade, a 3-0 series lead might as well be a done deal. It is a hopeless guarantee for the oppressed.
It’s not even that there were no returns; it’s that there wasn’t even a team that was close, with zero Game 7s to speak of in those situations.
To some, it may seem like a non-story, given the rarity in hockey history. A 3-0 series lead is a stranglehold that should be impossible to loosen, a feat reserved only for the greatest choke artists.
Despite the increase in parity in the salary cap era, we should have seen a few more in the last decade, just by pure chance. There’s always the possibility of even the most unexpected thing happening, and the fact that those possibilities didn’t materialize is fascinating.
Since 2015, there have been 30 instances where a team lost 3-0, and 60% of those ended unceremoniously in a draw. Only four (13%) made it to Game 6, where the Hurricanes now find themselves, with last year’s Dallas Stars being the first to do so in eight (!) seasons.
While the odds are never in favor of a team down 3-0, they aren’t zero either. At least they shouldn’t be. There’s a myth that a 3-0 deficit only happens to the worst teams, the ones most unlikely to climb out of such a hole, but it can happen to the best teams too.
Before the series began, the 30 teams ranged from 17% underdogs to 77% favorites (hello 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning) based on Sports Odds History series prices. Of the 30, 13 teams were projected to win from the start. Based on that – and taking into account the team’s lower opinion after losing three consecutive games – the odds of forcing at least Game 7 ranged from 4% to 20%. The odds of returning ranged from 1% to 13%.
On average, we’re talking about a 1 in 10 chance to force Game 7 and a 1 in 20 chance to win the series after losing 3-0. These are clearly tiny odds, but over 30 series, those small odds add up.
Based on each team’s odds after being down 3-0, we should have seen three Game 7s with one or two full-blown comebacks. Instead we have zero. In short: we were robbed.
Some are quick to point out the human element of all this, and that’s a very fair point. Down 3-0, many teams showed the killer instinct needed to close out the series. Down 3-0, many teams abandoned the prospect of the mountain ahead of them. Sometimes, teams down 3-0 are simply not as good as expected from the start. Or the team at 3-0 is much better.
As valid as these points may seem, the odds of not seeing a Game 7 for a team down 3-0 let alone a comeback are still very low – low enough that even true quality counters can’t explain it. Given 30 cases with an average 10.6% chance of seeing a Game 7, there’s a 97% chance we should have seen at least one. A 5.2% chance of seeing a return in 30 cases gives us an 80% chance of seeing at least one on that front.
The odds of chaos have been quite high over the last decade; they just didn’t show up. This can happen on small samples; The 30 Series definitely qualifies for this.
Over a larger sample, however, the odds tend to even out, and this is best highlighted by looking at the start of the salary cap era. There, the probabilities perfectly reflect reality.
From 2006 to 2014, there were 38 series in which a team lost 3-0, but those teams clearly had a bit more fight. A higher percentage won at least one game (57%), two forced a Game 7 and lost (Detroit and Chicago in 2011), and two of those teams won (Los Angeles in 2014 and Philadelphia in 2010).
Their average odds? The same as last decade: 11% to force Game 7 and 5% to complete the comeback.
Adding up all the odds, that nine-year stretch delivered the exact amount of dramatic chaos expected: 4.1 games at 7 and 2.1 comebacks. It’s a stark contrast to what we’ve received over the past decade. Hockey fans are long overdue.
Late doesn’t mean it should have happened. It’s a mistake to suggest there will be more Game 7s and comebacks after a team loses 3-0 simply because it hasn’t happened in a while. That doesn’t make it any more likely to happen in the near future. The odds, on average, are still about one in 10 for a Game 7 and one in 20 for a comeback.
But we’re as close as we can get to getting here with the Hurricanes.
For Carolina, in particular, the odds changed after winning Games 4 and 5. There is now a more than 60% chance of forcing Game 7 and a more than 30% chance of completing the comeback. For the first time in a decade, we have a serious chance to witness history.
The odds are still heavily in the Rangers’ favor here, up 3-2, and no one is ruling out that the Presidents’ Trophy champions can get that much-needed fourth win. But the Hurricanes also have a great team, with a real chance of living up to their slogan: “causing chaos.”
(Photo: Joshua Sarner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
