In concept, the query is true up my alley.

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

It’s the type of history-based debate that I’m normally throughout. In actual fact, when it first turned obvious that the Oilers had been going to make a collection of this Stanley Cup Last, I began fascinated about how this piece might look. Should you’ve been studying me over time, you possibly can most likely image how it will 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 couple of one-liners, after which arrive at a conclusion roughly 2,000 phrases later.

The issue is, on the subject 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 couple of extra: It’s not even shut.

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

Let’s begin with the apparent comparability: The 1942 Stanley Cup Last, the one different time {that a} crew got here again from down 3-0 to win a championship. That’s not simply within the NHL, by the best way — 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 Purple Wings.

Does that work? Not likely. Put apart that we’re speaking greater than eight a long time in the past, a collection that just about no one studying it will have any recollection of watching. The early Forties had been additionally the center of a World Conflict, one which noticed lots of the world’s greatest 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 type of comparability right here.

Moreover, these 1942 Purple Wings weren’t superb. They’d completed fifth in a seven-team league, with a report nicely beneath .500, and had made the ultimate solely because of the league’s extraordinarily unusual playoff format. They had been most likely simply completely happy to be there. In contrast to, say, the Panthers, a crew 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 try this, you’re actually all out of life like choices. The Islanders had been the following crew to come back again from down 3-0 to win a collection, in 1975 towards the Penguins. That was a matchup between a pair of recent-ish enlargement groups. It was an enormous win for the Islanders, positive, and a nasty loss for the Penguins. But it surely was the quarter-final. It’s not in the identical ballpark.

The Bruins shedding to the Flyers in 2010? Nope. That one was additionally in Spherical 2, and whereas it had the additional pathos of Recreation 4 going to additional time, to not point out the Bruins being up 3-0 in Recreation 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 essentially the most devastating collapse of the trendy period, given all the load of heartbreak the Sharks had been carrying on their shoulders, but it surely was a first-round collection. Subsequent.

Besides there isn’t a subsequent, not less than so far as 3-0 collection are involved. We simply coated your complete historical past. And none of it even comes near what’s taking place proper now.

After all, a collapse doesn’t need to be from down 3-0. Open up the definition a bit, and we will speak about among the groups which have blown 3-1 leads, together with final 12 months’s Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins to those similar Panthers. There was the Leafs shedding 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. Possibly the very best candidate can be the Golden Knights shedding to the Sharks in 2019, that well-known recreation 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 remaining, or the Purple Wings doing the identical to the Penguins whereas chasing back-to-back Cups. We might even get into particular person video games, just like the Miracle on Manchester or It Was 4-1 or the Monday Night time Miracle.

All these losses had been devastating — the sort of absolute intestine punches that some followers nonetheless aren’t prepared to speak about. These losses could make you cry. They will make you re-evaluate your fandom. They will go away 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? Possibly it’s the incorrect query. What concerning the greatest in sports activities historical past, interval?

That’s nearer to a debate. I don’t suppose the NBA and even MLB can provide one thing shut, though Purple Sox and Yankees followers would possibly disagree. The NFL might 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 possibly 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 truly carried out it but. There’s nonetheless Recreation 7, on house ice. That’s what you play all 12 months lengthy to earn, or so they are saying. The Oilers have gained 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 doubtful 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 essentially 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. Apart from one: Can the Panthers get the win they want, of their final likelihood to keep away from infamy?

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