In principle, the query is true up my alley.

If the Panthers lose Sport 7 on Monday, will or not it’s the most important collapse in NHL historical past?

It’s the form of history-based debate that I’m often throughout. In truth, when it first turned obvious that the Oilers have been going to make a collection of this Stanley Cup Last, I began fascinated with how this piece may look. For those who’ve been studying me through the years, you’ll be able to in all probability image how it might be laid out. We’d pose the query, then checklist a bunch of potential contenders for the honors. We’d weigh the professionals and cons, placing all of it in historic context, drop a number of one-liners, after which arrive at a conclusion roughly 2,000 phrases later.

The issue is, in the case of this Panthers collapse being the worst of all time, I don’t have 2,000 phrases for you. I don’t want them.

I solely want one: Sure. After which a number of extra: It’s not even shut.

Consider me, I attempted. I went again over the historical past of groups blowing leads. However there’s no affordable argument that something in NHL historical past comes near what we is perhaps about to see.

Let’s begin with the plain comparability: The 1942 Stanley Cup Last, the one different time {that a} workforce got here again from down 3-0 to win a championship. That’s not simply within the NHL, by the way in which — it’s the one time it’s occurred in any of MLB, NBA or NHL historical past. That 12 months, the Maple Leafs got here again to beat the Pink Wings.

Does that work? Not likely. Put apart that we’re speaking greater than eight a long time in the past, a collection that nearly no person studying this can have any recollection of watching. The early Forties have been additionally the center of a World Battle, one which noticed most of the world’s finest younger athletes referred to as to serve abroad. The NHL’s MVP in 1942 was Tom Anderson. The factors chief was Bryan Hextall. This wasn’t even the Authentic Six period, as a result of that hadn’t began but. I like NHL historical past as a lot as just about anybody on the market, and even I’m not going to faux that there’s any form of comparability right here.

In addition to, these 1942 Pink Wings weren’t excellent. They’d completed fifth in a seven-team league, with a file effectively below .500, and had made the ultimate solely because of the league’s extraordinarily unusual playoff format. They have been in all probability simply completely happy to be there. Not like, say, the Panthers, a workforce that’s spent weeks telling us about how they’ve promised themselves that they’d make it again to the ultimate and end the job.

So 1942 is out. However the issue is, when you do this, you’re actually all out of sensible choices. The Islanders have been the subsequent workforce to return again from down 3-0 to win a collection, in 1975 towards the Penguins. That was a matchup between a pair of recent-ish growth groups. It was a giant win for the Islanders, certain, and a foul loss for the Penguins. Nevertheless it was the quarter-final. It’s not in the identical ballpark.

The Bruins dropping to the Flyers in 2010? Nope. That one was additionally in Spherical 2, and whereas it had the additional pathos of Sport 4 going to extra time, to not point out the Bruins being up 3-0 in Sport 7 and blowing that too, it wasn’t the ultimate. Neither was the Kings’ win over the Sharks in 2014. That one might have been probably the most devastating collapse of the fashionable period, given all the burden of heartbreak the Sharks have been carrying on their shoulders, however it was a first-round collection. Subsequent.

Besides there isn’t a subsequent, no less than so far as 3-0 collection are involved. We simply coated your entire historical past. And none of it even comes near what’s taking place proper now.

In fact, a collapse doesn’t must be from down 3-0. Open up the definition a bit, and we are able to speak about a few of the groups which have blown 3-1 leads, together with final 12 months’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins to those identical Panthers. There was the Leafs dropping to the Habs in 2021, or the Flyers towards the Devils within the Eric Lindros/Scott Stevens collection in 2000, or any variety of Washington Capitals collapses. Perhaps the perfect candidate can be the Golden Knights dropping to the Sharks in 2019, that well-known sport the place they blew a 4-0 lead within the third interval.

Develop the scope additional and you possibly can point out the 2011 Canucks blowing a 2-0 result in the Bruins within the last, or the Pink Wings doing the identical to the Penguins whereas chasing back-to-back Cups. We may even get into particular person video games, just like the Miracle on Manchester or It Was 4-1 or the Monday Evening Miracle.

All these losses have been devastating — the form of absolute intestine punches that some followers nonetheless aren’t prepared to speak about. These losses could make you cry. They’ll make you re-evaluate your fandom. They’ll depart lasting psychological scars.

However they’re not blowing a 3-0 lead within the Stanley Cup Last, whereas looking for your franchise’s first championship, in a wired age the place the entire world can watch and the new takes might be flying.

The largest collapse in NHL historical past? Perhaps it’s the flawed query. What concerning the greatest in sports activities historical past, interval?

That’s nearer to a debate. I don’t assume the NBA and even MLB can provide one thing shut, though Pink Sox and Yankees followers would possibly disagree. The NFL may make a case for the Falcons blowing a 28-3 lead in Tremendous Bowl LI. I don’t know sufficient about soccer or different sports activities, so perhaps any individual could make an argument. Has an Olympic gold medal race ever ended with somebody tripping over their very own shoelaces and face-planting proper on the end line?

I don’t know. I’m not an skilled on sports activities historical past. However I do know NHL historical past, and I do know this one isn’t shut. What we’re witnessing is the best collapse within the historical past of the league, by a mile.

That’s … if it occurs.

That’s the Stanley Cup-sized caveat right here. The Panthers are collapsing, which suggests they haven’t really executed it but. There’s nonetheless Sport 7, on residence ice. That’s what you play all 12 months lengthy to earn, or so they are saying. The Oilers have received three straight, however three isn’t 4, because the Panthers are eminently certified to inform you proper now.

So these are the stakes on Monday. The Panthers win, and all of us make jokes about the way it was by no means unsure because the Stanley Cup will get skated across the Florida rink and a brand new era of hockey followers is made. Or they lose, they usually go to the very high of probably the most depressing checklist you can also make. There’s no center floor left right here, not anymore.

The worst collapse of all time? There’s no query in any respect. Aside from one: Can the Panthers get the win they want, of their final probability to keep away from infamy?

(Picture: Curtis Comeau / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photographs)