A two-goal lead is commonly referred to as the most dangerous lead in hockey. Right now, it’s more dangerous than ever.
There had already been 72 multi-goal comebacks in the NHL entering Monday, with less than half of the season elapsed. As a whole, the league is on pace to have the most multi-goal leads turned into losses in the sport’s history. The record is 138, in 2018-19, and the league is on pace for 160 this season.
As the goal-scoring averages continue to soar, teams are becoming better equipped to erase deficits. It’s not simply the dreaded two-goal lead. Just last Wednesday, the Penguins took a 4-0 lead into the first intermission against Detroit, only to watch it disintegrate before their eyes in a 5-4 overtime loss.
In the five days after that epic turnaround, seven more teams came back to win from at least two goals down. On Thursday, the Senators, Kings and Sharks all erased multi-goal deficits to earn two points. On Saturday, the Lightning and Red Wings did it as well.
In Vegas, the Golden Knights and Predators both let two-goal leads slip away from them in the same game. Vegas squelched an early 2-0 Nashville lead with four straight goals, only for the Predators to rally from down 4-2 to force overtime.
Through the first three months of the season, a team has come back to win after trailing by two or more goals in 12.2 percent of games. That would be the second-highest rate of the NHL’s expansion era, behind only the 1985-86 season (14.4) percent, and the rate is up from 7.6 percent just seven years ago in 2015-16.
So, why can’t NHL teams hold onto leads? We surveyed several NHL head coaches and they all believe it’s a result of the skilled, offensive direction the league has taken.
“I think it ties into the scoring uptick equation,” Kings coach Todd McLellan told The Athletic’s Eric Stephens. “When you fall behind, there’s more firepower in every lineup.”
With teams averaging 3.17 goals per game, scoring is at its highest point in the last 29 years (3.24 in 1993-94). Rosters are trending younger. Bottom-six slots that once were commonly filled by veteran, checking-line forwards are now being used to groom younger, skilled players. On the blue line, teams are searching for the next great offensive defensemen while stay-at-home defensive anchors are becoming less common.
“I do believe that most teams’ lineups are titled toward offense, so that helps you come back,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Then, because you’re tilted toward offense when you have a lead, those offensive players don’t check as well, so I think it’s both. You used to have a bottom of the lineup that was built on protecting leads. Now, a lot of times they’re built on young skills that want to come back.”
It’s always dangerous to read too far into offensive-leaning trends early in the season. Scoring has always been easier to come by in the opening month, and the numbers generally trend down as teams settle defensively. But now that the season has passed the turn of the calendar and is through 45 percent of games, this feels like more than that. Save percentage has gone down consistently over the last eight years, and is currently at its lowest point in nearly two decades (.905).
“I don’t want the goalie union upset with me,” Cassidy said. “I just don’t think (the overall goaltending) isn’t at the level it was a few years ago, for whatever reason. Is that a product of better shooters, or a product of younger goaltenders that are still working on their craft? I don’t know the answer to that but I suspect it’s both.”
Better shooting and fewer saves obviously make protecting a lead more difficult, and we’re seeing just that.
“I just think there’s so much skill involved in today’s game that once (momentum) gets going, it’s hard to stop it if you’re on one end,” Islanders coach Lane Lambert told The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz. “And you can keep it going if you’re on the other end of it.”
While all of the coaches questioned seemed to agree that the increase in scoring is the biggest culprit for the rise in comebacks, Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman offered a more specific reasoning for the uptick in goals. On TNT in late November, former player and coach Rick Tocchet brooded about teams’ inability to hold onto leads in a fascinating conversation with Yzerman.
“Playing against you and your teams back in the day, when it was 2-0 it was lockdown city,” Tocchet said. Both he and Yzerman played from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s, spending the last half of their careers in an NHL with a fraction of the scoring of today’s game. “You guys never gave up a lead. This year, it’s driving me crazy. Why is it that teams are blowing these leads?”
“Teams are having trouble defending, and figuring out a way of defending,” Yzerman replied. “When we played it was pretty simple, three-on-three down low and wingers covered the points. Now with these defensemen so active, and so much more room, you’re having a lot of switches. Teams defend with overloads in the corners, which creates confusion when the offensive team breaks the puck out of the corner.”
When the league pushed the blue lines toward the center line and increased the offensive zone to 75 feet in 2005, it gave the attacking team more room to work. Now, offensive-minded defensemen regularly activate deep into the zone, making defending more complicated. Not only do they give teams another skilled player they must defend, but responsibilities are also constantly shifting as attacking players fly around the zone.
“The game is in transition, and I think the offensive side of coaching has overtaken the defensive side,” Yzerman continued. “Now, coaches are going to have to adjust to come up with better defensive techniques or systems.”
With 32 teams, there are obviously more games being played each season than ever before, but even when accounting for that, multi-goal leads are dissipating at the highest rate in almost 40 years.
Several coaches offered an additional explanation for why leads are increasingly difficult to hold onto.
“I don’t think you’re really out (of it),” McLellan said. “Putting away the whistle used to exist, I think, with the referees. They weren’t going to get involved in the game. That doesn’t exist anymore. They make calls right to the end and in overtime.”
With an average of 3.26 power plays per game, teams are getting more opportunities than they have in nine seasons. Perhaps more importantly, they’re converting power plays into goals at the highest rate in 40 years.
“I think officials are much more willing to put their arm up and give you a five-on-three, or a power play, than maybe before when they were a little more hesitant to do that,” Cassidy said.
Digging further into the numbers, McLellan and Cassidy seem to be spot-on. Power-play goals are fueling comebacks at an impressive rate.
Of the 72 multi-goal comebacks to this point in the season, 43 of them (60 percent) have included at least one power-play goal. In many cases, teams scored multiple power-play goals to reclaim the lead. A total of 54 power-play goals have been scored in multi-goal comebacks.
“The power-play production as a whole has gone up quite a bit this season,” McLellan said. “If you look at (Thursday’s) game (in which the Kings erased a two-goal deficit in the third period to top Colorado 5-4 in the shootout), we got one on the power play and then we took advantage. They didn’t make very many mistakes — but maybe one mistake and it was in the net.”
The comebacks may drive coaches crazy, but they make for a more entertaining product. Long gone are the days of fans considering changing the channel when their team gives up two early goals. In 2023, your team has got them right where they want them – clinging helplessly to the most dangerous lead in hockey.
(Photo of Detroit’s Jake Walman and Pittsburgh’s Casey DeSmith: Charles LeClaire / USA Today)
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