Down 2-0 in Stanley Cup playoffs? Comebacks rare but legendary

Ray Slover

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Down 2-0 in Stanley Cup playoffs? Comebacks rare but legendary image

Losing the first game of a Stanley Cup playoff series isn't the end of the world. Lose the first two, and the end is on the horizon.

The Ottawa Senators stand on the Bifrost looking at oblivion as their mystical run to the playoffs now seems endangered, to put it nicely. And the Montreal Canadiens would love nothing better than to escort them out.

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Recovering from a 2-0 deficit to win an NHL playoff series is the stuff of legend, Nordic or otherwise. Consider this Twitter post making the rounds on Saturday.

Perhaps the most famous (at least to recent eyes and ears) tale of redemption comes from the 2009 Final, when the Pittsburgh Penguins won four of the final five games against the Detroit Red Wings.

Look more deeply into the past for the perhaps the greatest of all. It happened three times before, but only once in the Expansion era. That, too, was the stuff of folklore as the Canadiens came back to upend the Chicago Blackhawks in seven games in 1971. Henri Richard got the tying and winning goals, the exclamation points on the "Pocket Rocket"'s Hall of Fame career. And it was the start of the Ken Dryden ode.


(No, hockey wasn't that slow back then … )


(Yes, that's the voice of Dan Kelly on the video. We're not worthy.)

And in case you didn't watch the videos, the Blackhawks led the game … wait for it … 2-0.

The other two finals: 1966, when the Habs KO'd the Detroit Red Wings in six games; and 1942, when the Toronto Maple Leafs won in seven over the Wings. In that series, Detroit was up 3-0. It's the mother of all comebacks.

MORE: Ranking the definitive Final comebacks, by SeasonOver.com

Remember Game 7 in 2009? Talk about a classic; it went down to the final save at the horn, when Marc-Andre Fleury stopped Niklas Lidstrom's shot. Fleury had to quickly recover from making a pad save on Henrik Zetterberg to get his blocker on a Lidstrom shot that seemed to scream overtime.

"It was so hard watching the clock tick down for the third period," said Pens captain Sidney Crosby, who missed most of the game with a knee injury. "But everything it took to win, we did it — blocking shots, great goaltending, having different guys step up."

Not even players involved could fathom what was happening. Watch the game's conclusion and see why.

"I looked up at the clock and there were six seconds left and I couldn't believe it was actually going to happen," said tearful 38-year-old forward Bill Guerin, who joined the Penguins at the trade deadline and picked up his second career Cup, 14 years after the first with New Jersey.

"I was so young and I thought I would get a million cracks at it. You just don't. All I've wanted the rest of my career was one more chance. Thank God for Max Talbot."

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Talbot had both goals for the Penguins in the 2-1 victory. The shocker: Talbot was not known for his skills.

"Hey, I still have bad hands," Talbot said. "These two goals don't improve my stickhandling skills.

"But I don't care about the two goals. We won the game. Flower (Fleury) made some great saves. [Evgeni Malkin] won the Conn Smythe. Everybody sacrificed their body. [Miroslav Satan] goes down to block a shot. That's how you win championships."

The lesson here: Don't give up. The Senators say they won't and hope to build on a late rally in Friday's game.

“If you come in here and split (the first two games), you’ve done your job,” Clarke MacArthur told The Ottawa Citizen. “That didn’t happen. But at the same time, when have we done anything right this year and made it easy on ourselves? We’re going to do what we have to do at home and turn this thing around.”

Other teams facing a 2-0 deficit after Saturday's game will be seeking solace. Like the '71 Canadiens, they'll need to have a little magic in their pocket.

Ray Slover