Playoff Series Where The Winner Was Clearly Outplayed?

[DitchMarner]

I don't mean ones where the team that lost played a little better but ran into a hot goalie or something.

I'm talking about series where it seemed the winner had no business coming out on top.


It's been a while, but I recall the Capitals carrying the play in their series against the Penguins in 2017. They somehow went down 3-1 despite looking downright dominant at times and then couldn't finish the comeback, losing in seven games. They did get their revenge the following year, eliminating the Pens in six games and ending their two-year Cup streak (PIT hasn't won a series since).

Click to read more...

 

[tabness]

as a Wings fan, where do you wanna begin? lol

many losing series from the glory years actually saw the Wings outplay the other team (I'd even include Colorado 1996 and 1999 there) but vastly outplayed two come to mind:

• 1994 against San Jose because I feel like Scotty was trying to get Bryan Murray fired to become the GM/Director of Player Personnel and so didn't really even coach
• 2003 against Ducks cause of Jiggy's big pads

 

[The Panther]

I think it's fairly common in a series where one team is clearly better at even strength and in most situations, but also where the other team is awesome on the PP and thus wins the series. That seems to happen fairly often. Like, if you look at the clubs' respective plus/minus results, the losing team will be, like, +25 and the winning team maybe -25, but the difference is that the losing team scored 10 PP goals or whatever.

But it's rarer to think of a series where one club is clearly better overall and loses. Two come to mind, however:

1993 Los Angeles - Toronto
I'm pretty sure the Leafs were the better team in this series. Toronto kind of let up a bit in game two and the Kings showed some surprising grit for that one, but after that L.A. got kind of lucky in game six and then Toronto got 'Gretzky-ed' in game seven. But I think Toronto was the better team by a reasonable margin.

2021 Edmonton - Winnipeg
This might be a controversial choice because Winnipeg swept the series. But honestly, my memory of this one is that Edmonton was clearly the better team in at least three of the four games (certainly games 2, 3, 4), and possibly in all four. But a couple of costly mistakes by Oilers' players at key moments led to Edmonton losing three games in a row in overtime.

 

[McGarnagle]

Aside from the game 2 drubbing, the 2013 ECF was the most disproportionate sweep I've ever seen. The Penguins were scary as hell on every possession and dominating in game 1 but Rask managed to hold the door while Krejci snuck a few past Vokoun. Games 3 and 4 were tight and decided by a triple OT and goal in one and a late third period goal in the other.

 

[Mike C]

Forgive my dalliance into a different sport but every time I see a topic like this I immediately think to the 1960 baseball World Series. The Mazeroski one!

 

[MadArcand]

Canes - Panthers 2023. Basically goalied to death just like Giguere did to the Wings.

 

[JianYang]

By outplayed, do you mean significantly outchanced?

When the 2010 Habs took out the top two favourites of the east in Washington and Pittsburgh, I don't have the numbers infront of me, but I would imagine the Habs were significantly outchanced, and in the case against Pittsburgh, they won rhe series with their #1 dman essentially missing the whole series.

 

[Crosby2010]

I don't mean ones where the team that lost played a little better but ran into a hot goalie or something.

I'm talking about series where it seemed the winner had no business coming out on top.


It's been a while, but I recall the Capitals carrying the play in their series against the Penguins in 2017. They somehow went down 3-1 despite looking downright dominant at times and then couldn't finish the comeback, losing in seven games. They did get their revenge the following year, eliminating the Pens in six games and ending their two-year Cup streak (PIT hasn't won a series since).

Upon looking at the stats of the 2017 series I was surprised the Caps outshot them in all 7 games. In 5 games by a big margin too. I honestly don't think Fleury gets talked about enough with this series because I remember him being brilliant. A couple things, the Pens were without Letang all playoffs and didn't have that QB starting the plays from the back end. It showed. They relied heavily on goaltending and Crosby/Malkin and some help from Kessel. Also, Crosby was knocked out in Game 3 early by Ovechkin. Then missed Game 4. That factors in for a bit, but they still were vastly outshot, which surprises me.

2010 while the Habs did outshoot the Caps once (39-38) in Game 4, in general this was Peewee level type of dominance by the Caps. I can remember the ice being so tilted in the Caps favour. Game 6 and 7 tell the story here, and give you respect for Halak. Outshot 54-22 and 42-16 in the final two games. Ovechkin had 10 shots on net in Game 7. This is a series where I am not sure I have ever seen bigger highway robbery from a goalie. There was nothing the Caps could do, it was a one in a million type of series because based on percentages alone the team that outplays the other that much eventually wins it. I've seen Ovechkin criticized on this series but there is nothing more humanly possible he could have done.

2010 the Pens and Habs get a shout out too. It put Halak on a legendary basis from this year alone. Maybe a slight better performance by the Habs in this series but they were still relying heavily on Halak. 39-20 in shots in Game 7 for the Pens. The Habs were outshot badly this series too.

You'd be surprised that the Pens didn't really dominate the Isles until Game 7 in 1993. Lots of games the Isles out shot the Pens. Strange how the Pens never really sobered up until Game 7, and by then a couple of bad goals by Barrasso sealed their fate, and a bad line change that led to the Volek goal. So this one isn't on here other than Game 7 alone.

1975 Sabres/Habs series. Both had 113 points in the season, and this is a 6 game series where the Sabres were outscored 29-21. This is a 6 game series too. All tight games the Sabres won, two blowout games the Habs won. This wasn't a Cup final series either, it was the semis. There is the odd time a Cup winner is outscored in a series very slightly. It happened in 2004 with Tampa/Calgary, it happened in 2009 with Detroit/Pittsburgh and to be honest in the 1972 Summit Series the Soviets scored one more goal than Canada. Edmonton as well outscored by Panthers by 5 goals in 2024. But how often does it happen in a 6 game series, and also by that much too? On paper it looks like each team pretty much outplayed their opponent on home ice but not on the road.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

2019 SCF.

 

[DitchMarner]

As a Leafs fan, I hate to admit it, but TOR won that 2004 series against OTT mainly because of goaltending.

The Leafs were outshot in every game (often by a substantial margin) but received three shutouts from Ed Belfour whereas Lalime completely shat the bed in Game Seven,

 

[JianYang]

Upon looking at the stats of the 2017 series I was surprised the Caps outshot them in all 7 games. In 5 games by a big margin too. I honestly don't think Fleury gets talked about enough with this series because I remember him being brilliant. A couple things, the Pens were without Letang all playoffs and didn't have that QB starting the plays from the back end. It showed. They relied heavily on goaltending and Crosby/Malkin and some help from Kessel. Also, Crosby was knocked out in Game 3 early by Ovechkin. Then missed Game 4. That factors in for a bit, but they still were vastly outshot, which surprises me.

2010 while the Habs did outshoot the Caps once (39-38) in Game 4, in general this was Peewee level type of dominance by the Caps. I can remember the ice being so tilted in the Caps favour. Game 6 and 7 tell the story here, and give you respect for Halak. Outshot 54-22 and 42-16 in the final two games. Ovechkin had 10 shots on net in Game 7. This is a series where I am not sure I have ever seen bigger highway robbery from a goalie. There was nothing the Caps could do, it was a one in a million type of series because based on percentages alone the team that outplays the other that much eventually wins it. I've seen Ovechkin criticized on this series but there is nothing more humanly possible he could have done.

2010 the Pens and Habs get a shout out too. It put Halak on a legendary basis from this year alone. Maybe a slight better performance by the Habs in this series but they were still relying heavily on Halak. 39-20 in shots in Game 7 for the Pens. The Habs were outshot badly this series too.

You'd be surprised that the Pens didn't really dominate the Isles until Game 7 in 1993. Lots of games the Isles out shot the Pens. Strange how the Pens never really sobered up until Game 7, and by then a couple of bad goals by Barrasso sealed their fate, and a bad line change that led to the Volek goal. So this one isn't on here other than Game 7 alone.

1975 Sabres/Habs series. Both had 113 points in the season, and this is a 6 game series where the Sabres were outscored 29-21. This is a 6 game series too. All tight games the Sabres won, two blowout games the Habs won. This wasn't a Cup final series either, it was the semis. There is the odd time a Cup winner is outscored in a series very slightly. It happened in 2004 with Tampa/Calgary, it happened in 2009 with Detroit/Pittsburgh and to be honest in the 1972 Summit Series the Soviets scored one more goal than Canada. Edmonton as well outscored by Panthers by 5 goals in 2024. But how often does it happen in a 6 game series, and also by that much too? On paper it looks like each team pretty much outplayed their opponent on home ice but not on the road.

I listed the 2010 Pens as well but not sure if game 7 is a good indicator. What were the shots at the point that Montreal took a 4-0 lead? I remember it was fairly early for a 4 goal lead too.

It's not uncommon for shots against to balloon in that situation.

 

[Sentinel]

Detroit losing to SJ in 1994 and to Anaheim in 2003. They should have won both series with one hand tied behind their back.

 

[DitchMarner]

Detroit losing to SJ in 1994 and to Anaheim in 2003. They should have won both series with one hand tied behind their back.

Giguere's heroics are well-known, but how exactly did they lose that series to SJ anyway?

Then TOR was one OT goal away from elimination by the Sharks in the next round.

I have a feeling the Sharks would have matched up better against the Canucks than the Maple Leafs did that year. SJ's top line played a European sort of style, which was uncommon in the NHL at the time.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Giguere's heroics are well-known, but how exactly did they lose that series to SJ anyway?

Saw a pretty good documentary on the 1993-94 Sharks some time ago:

Don’t Make Me Turn This Team Around

 

[MadLuke]

It depend if one mind consider the goaltender as fully part of the team or not making costly mistake an integral part of being a cup winning squad....

If we do not, MTL would have a nice list of those, vs Capitals in 2010 for example.

 

[dalewood12]

Aside from the game 2 drubbing, the 2013 ECF was the most disproportionate sweep I've ever seen. The Penguins were scary as hell on every possession and dominating in game 1 but Rask managed to hold the door while Krejci snuck a few past Vokoun. Games 3 and 4 were tight and decided by a triple OT and goal in one and a late third period goal in the other.

Definitely the "closest" 4-0 sweep I've seen.

 

[Crosby2010]

I listed the 2010 Pens as well but not sure if game 7 is a good indicator. What were the shots at the point that Montreal took a 4-0 lead? I remember it was fairly early for a 4 goal lead too.

It's not uncommon for shots against to balloon in that situation.

5:14 into the 2nd period the Habs had a 4-0 lead. It was Travis Moen's famous goal where Gonchar basically waves at him and doesn't even try to defend him (it has shades of Guy Lafleur allowing the 5th goal in the final game of the 1981 Canada Cup). Crosby got a penalty 10 seconds into the game and the Habs scored on a weak goal on that power play and then the collapse happened for Pittsburgh. It is hard to find a boxscore that shows shots per period, but I do remember that Game 7 being one where the Pens dominated and the Habs hung on. It was 4-2 by the end of the 2nd. Could have been a comeback if the Pens did better. This game I feel is what set in motion some playoff gaffes. They beat Philly the next round and then are in the Cup final vs. Chicago. That would have been a good one, but they are defending champs in the Cup final so they have good chances.

Giguere's heroics are well-known, but how exactly did they lose that series to SJ anyway?

It was one of those series where the Wings just couldn't shake the Sharks. Reminds me of a year earlier when the Pens couldn't do it to the Isles either. We all remember Osgood's cough up in Game 7 in the 3rd period. That was bad, and it was with only about 6-7 minutes left. But the Wings never should have let it get that far. They won 7-1 the previous game. This was one of those times when Yzerman's future in Detroit was up in the air. The Wings had a 2-1 series lead and a 2-0 lead in Game 4 but lost that game and the next one. So many things happened to this game prior to Game 7.