NHL playoffs: Which team trailing 3-1 has best chance of coming back?

Going down 3-1 in a series during the NHL playoffs is about as close to the most dire of circumstances a team can find itself in without teetering on the verge of being swept.

With 31 comebacks out of a total of 325 series to reach Game 5 at 3-1, a paltry 9.5 percent of all teams have scaled the mountain and clawed back, fractionally higher than the two percent of teams to race back from down 3-0. To find yourself in a 3-1 hole is more predictive of a season on life support than many often suspect, even if it would only take a meager two wins to bring a series all square for a decisive Game 7.

Four clubs this go around — the Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Islanders, Florida Panthers, and Winnipeg Jets — find themselves in exactly that predicament through the first four games of this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. While each varies in how they stumbled into these disappointing circumstances, not all of these 3-1 deficits are created equally.

The Lightning, for example, have held the lead in-game throughout their series with the Maple Leafs more than 53 percent of the time. Contrasted with a team like the Panthers, whose 40.3 percent share of goals ranks second last across the Stanley Cup playoffs, it becomes a lot easier to understand why some fans have a better reason than others to keep their hopes alive.

Not every team will make things interesting. Heck, the fact that only about 18 percent of teams ever force a Game 7 indicates that a straight sweep of wins in five or six games could reasonably be expected. But there remains reason to believe, especially based on how some of these four series have played out, that we may not have seen the last of each of these clubs.

Exactly who’s likeliest to do the improbable, however, is a compelling discussion worth exploring.

4. Florida Panthers

For their part, the Florida Panthers are a much better team than their 92-point season would indicate. Though not to the same degree as in 2022, the Panthers were a top-10 team once again by expected goal share, with their 3.51 goals per game ranking sixth during the regular season. Even against a defensive juggernaut like the Boston Bruins, the Panthers were going to find ways to generate opportunities.

Unfortunately, those chances haven’t translated into anything meaningful in the way of actual goals, while the team’s defensive deficiencies from this winter have translated into equally concerning springtime woes. The Panthers have actually been the better team under the hood than the Bruins, outdoing Boston on a rate basis on expected goals.

The problem, however, has been the team's total inability to solve Linus Ullmark, who leads all goalies in goals saved above expected this postseason, as well as the clock striking midnight on Alex Lyon and Sergei Bobrovsky.

For perspective, Alex Lyon started all six games to end Florida’s season with their playoff hopes on the line, sparkling with a .946 save percentage. This postseason, however. he’s completely reverted into a pumpkin with a .902 save percentage eventually resulting in him ceding the crease to an arguably worse Sergei Bobrovsky, who was lit up to the tune of five goals in Sunday afternoon’s shellacking.

The Boston Bruins are a historically elite team on several fronts, and even if they aren’t outright winning the war against the Panthers under the hood, the sheer talent they boast from top to bottom across their lineup makes up for any shortcomings they’ve dealt with — including the absence of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci — and make it hard to see any universe the Panthers keep things going much longer.

3. Winnipeg Jets

Based on several public-facing models, the Winnipeg Jets were dubbed surprise favourites to potentially upset the Vegas Golden Knights as the second wild card seed. Sure, the gap wasn’t considered to be that significant, with most pegging the Jets as extremely slight favourites, but the gap, or lack thereof, was nonetheless evident.

Then, of course, Mark Stone and Jack Eichel arrived on the scene, and it’s been all downhill for the Jets and their fans since.

Winnipeg has been fed their lunch through four games, including a pair of backbreaking home losses despite a valiant comeback effort in Game 3. They’ve been thoroughly dominated by expected and actual goal share, and appear incapable of breaking through what has turned out to be a stifling Vegas game plan.

As for the offence, the aforementioned Stone and Eichel have gone full beast mode to start the playoffs, with the pair combining for five goals and nine points to help lead the charge offensively. Alongside third musketeer Chandler Stephenson, who’s firmly established himself as a legitimate star since bursting onto the scene last year, all Connor Hellebuyck and his defence have been able to do is watch as the most dominant line in the series has gone to work.

2. Tampa Bay Lightning

Sure, the Maple Leafs are cursed, and sure, all of the analytics point to the Tampa Bay Lightning dominating for huge swaths of this series. From a purely subjective, analytical, and rational standpoint, the Bolts should probably be the number one team on this list just based on the way they’ve carried the play through the vast majority of their series. They almost undeniably deserve a better fate than the hand they’ve been dealt.

And yet, something here feels different. Coughing up leads in back-to-back games, including a demon-slaying 4-1 lead for Toronto mere weeks ahead of the 10th anniversary of a fateful May night in Boston, seems to indicate that, against all odds, things just may be different after all.

While it’s impossible to get a full look behind the curtain at how the Lightning are approaching this series, Monday night’s second intermission interview with Brandon Hagel does seem to indicate something particularly troubling about this edition of the Lightning.

“I’m not surprised the score is 4-1 heading into the third period,” Hagel tells Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukaskus during the hit. “We thought last game we played good enough to win that game, knew we had to just step it up a little bit more and we did that.”

The 24-year-old doesn’t spell it out word by word, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read between the lines and hear echoes of Maple Leafs teams past, resting on their laurels and expecting things to go their way, only to fold once the adversity hits.

This isn’t the same Tampa Bay Lightning team that made three straight Stanley Cup appearances, and while they’re unlikely to bow out without a fight, the Maple Leafs sure feel as though they’re on the brink of snapping their 18-year series win drought.

1. New York Islanders

Update: The Islanders staved off elimination on Tuesday with a 3-2 victory in Game 5.

The Islanders, in a similar fashion to the Lightning, probably deserve better than a 3-1 series deficit based on how they’ve played. As the first wild card seed taking on the Metro-winning Hurricanes, the Islanders have been in lockstep for much of the series, including a pair of narrow one-goal losses and the most decisive win of the series in Game 3.

Through four games, the expected goal share at 5-on-5 is split right down the middle, while New York’s share of the actual goals is the highest of any team trailing in their series.

Between the pipes, Ilya Sorokin hasn’t been the same world-beater as during the regular season, but with a .917 save percentage so far, he’s held up his end of the bargain by out-dueling his Hurricanes counterpart in Antti Raanta.

New York have hung around more than admirably thus far with Carolina, which makes it somewhat puzzling why things have gone so sideways, and why they, of all teams, could be poised to claw back into things.

With a closer look at the NHL’s stats page, however, one glaring stat becomes crystal clear as to the culprit of New York’s struggles.

One goal.

Both Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat, the heartbeats of the Islanders' offence and arguably the two most prolific forwards in the series given the Hurricanes' swath of injuries, have just one goal and no assists between them, completely stymied by Carolina’s suffocating defence.

Given the lack of star power that the series boasts in general, there’s reason to believe that if that dynamic duo can break out of their respective funks, even with the runway rapidly shortening, the Islanders could make things interesting after all. Carolina is a really good hockey team, but they’re battered and bruised and should be vulnerable if the right players get going on Long Island.