Wednesday, April 18, 2012

3-0 Playoff Series Comebacks in Professional Sports

Vancouver is still hoping. Vancouver Canucks, which recently won the President's Trophy for the second straight season, after finishing the regular season with the best record in the entire National Hockey League, are currently down 3-0 to the 8th-seed Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the playoffs. This comes after last year's Stanley Cup Finals, in which the Canucks lost Game 7 at home to the Boston Bruins, triggering riots in the streets. Vancouver is hoping that the return of Daniel Sedin, who has been out for the past few weeks with injury, will reignite the team. However, the chances are against them. Very few professional sports teams have come back from 3-0 hole in best-of-7 series.

Only 4 times in best-of-7 series across the professional sports have teams come back from being down 3-0 to win the series. However, when miracle comebacks do happen, most of them have come in NHL. The only non-hockey series comeback belong to the 2004 Boston Red Sox during the ALCS, the historical upset of the Yankees on its way to win the World Series. No teams in NBA have rallied from being down 0-3. The other 3 comebacks all have happened in the NHL. Most recently, Philadelphia Flyers rallied back against the Boston Bruins in 2010 Conference Semifinals. Last season in the NHL playoffs, two teams down 0-3 in the series rallied to force, but only to lose, Game 7. Canucks were actually on the other end of that, beating the Chicago Blackhawks. Overall though, in NHL playoffs series when teams are up 3-0, they only clinch the series in Game 4 on 59% of the times.

Can the Canucks salvage its season tonight and move the series back to Vancouver? Or will they exit early in disappointment? Game 4 is tonight in Los Angeles.

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