Claimed: Since Expansion, Has Any Team Who Lost Every Game Against An Opponent During The Regular Season Gone On To Win The Following Playoff Series Against Them?

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Since Expansion, has any team ever won a playoff series against a team they failed to beat in the regular season?

 

Unfortunately for the fans of the underdogs, there has yet to be such an instance of this since expansion, as the three instances where a team entered the playoff series unbeaten against their opponents saw them win the series. However, two of those three instances of a team playing a side they hadn’t beaten in the regular season did see those previously winless teams pick up at least one victory in their playoff series. The three instances of teams playing each other in the playoffs after such a lob-sided regular season matchup were:

 

Americans Vs. Meute (Season 32 Quarter Final)

 

This is the only instance where I wasn’t in the league at the time and the forum on which this playoff series took place is no longer accessible, so unfortunately I can’t provide any unique information about this playoff series except what is presented in the index. Ryan Power’s Americans team finished with only the fifth best record in the regular season en route to their Continental Cup victory in Season 32, but it’s worth noting that the team were significantly better in the second half of the season, and in turn the playoffs, after the mid-season acquisitions of Malcolm Spud and Henrik Larsson, as they lost only nine of the 34 games they played in after losing 15 of their first 38 games. Their first round playoff matchup was an exceptionally easy draw against the Quebec City Meute, who had only recorded 45 points over the course of the regular season, worse than every other team in the European Conference. During their season, their matchips weren’t even close as the Americans won all eight in regular time with the Americans also scoring at least five goals in every one of their regular season matchups. It was a definite surprise then when the Meute wound up winning the first game of the series 3-2 in overtime after a heroic performance from QUE G. New York left no doubt though over the rest of the series, winning the next four games, including one 9-1 drubbing where the Americans recorded a ridiculous 77 shots.

 

Helsinki Vs. Cologne (Season 35 Semi Final)

 

This is the only instance of an 8-0 regular season matchup coming up in a playoff semi-final and, just looking at the standings, it’s quite a surprise to see that the Express failed to win a game during the regular season against the Titans. While the Titans were the better team, they were only 19 points ahead of the Express in the regular season standings and the only other team that the Titans had an unbeaten record against was an Americans team that had the second worst goal differential of all-time. They’d even lost twice to a Reign team that only picked up twelve points over the course of the season! In addition, going off shots alone recorded in those eight games, you couldn’t have asked for a more even total as both had 224 shots each! This really seemed to be a matchup where the goalie made all the difference as the Titans had Tuomas Tuukio, one of the greatest goalies in VHL history against Evgeni Chekhov, who would become a good goalie further down the line, but was never, at certainly not at this point, at the level of a goalie like Tuukio. In the playoffs, Cologne managed to get some redemption for their regular season as they took the series to 2-2 after four games, one of those wins saw the Titans shutout by the Express, before the Titans went on to win the next two games and proceed to the final where they wound up losing to the Quebec City Meute.

 

Calgary Vs. Toronto (Season 46 Quarter Final)

 

This playoff matchup was pretty much a foregone conclusion before it even started and is perhaps better known for the controversy surrounding the matchup rather than the matchup itself. The Legion only had four players on their roster at the time as they were in the early phases of their rebuild that would see them win three straight Continental Cups, and how far they were off that level at this point was more than evident in this series as they conceded 22 goals and scored only two in a four game series sweep. The notable controversies surrounding this matchup though were how the Legion got to the playoffs and how this matchup in particular led to big debate on changes to the awards system. The reason why the Legion making the playoffs was controversial was that at a certain point in the season, it looked fairly obvious that it would in fact be the Meute who would make the playoffs as the third place team in the North American Conference, however after the Meute made a concerted effort to lose more games in order to secure a better pick, the Legion ended up making the playoffs instead which led to some in the Board of Governors calling for action to be taken against the Meute. In addition, thanks to a ridiculously skewed playoff stat-line thanks to this series, Milos Denis would end up winning the Playoff MVP award. Around this time, voting for awards was solely done by the general managers and it was fairly obvious that certain GM’s didn’t take into account why Milos Denis stats were the way that they were during the voting period and selected him anyway based purely on his stat-line. This led to the start of the serious discussion of implementing a specific voting committee for awards, which was eventually led to award votes being cast by the BOG rather than the General Managers from Season 52 onwards.

 

It’s worth pointing out that I’m actually writing this on Tuesday 9^th, so by the time this is posted, we are actually very likely to be able to add a fourth playoff series to this as New York, who, unless the Meute completely collapse, are pretty much guaranteed second place in the North American Conference as things stand, which will see them play either Calgary or Toronto in the first round of the playoffs. Toronto has played all their eight games against New York and lost all of them and while Calgary still have one game left against the Americans, they are also yet to record a victory over them.

 

EDIT: There’s also a very realistic possibility of the first post-expansion instance of a Continental Cup  final matchup between two teams where only one side won during the regular season. The New York Americans went 0-8 versus the Stockholm Vikings during the regular season and, while the Americans finished behind the Meute during the regular season, they still have a very good chance at reaching the Continental Cup final.

For the record, there are three post-expansion instances of a team winning a playoff series against a team they only beat once in the regular season, but that’s another story for another time!

 

*For KY*

Edited May 15, 2017 by YEAH!stlemania

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

when we figured out @eaglesfan036 was very biased and also people just vote for whoever has the most points when it comes to voting