ZWF: An epic collapse could make hockey history
Zander's Weekend Facts #124: Sunday, June 23, 2024
Inside this week’s edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts, the NHL’s Stanley Cup Final will be decided on Monday, and a look at what Zander’s been reading this past week. Plus, a compilation of the top headlines you need to know about from the last seven days.
Also, go listen to the latest episodes of the Zander’s Facts Podcast! Episode 139 features a preview of this summer’s major international soccer tournaments, the UEFA EUROs and the CONMEBOL Copa América, with Zander’s Facts soccer guru Emma Adams. Download the Zander’s Facts podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
Here are Zander’s Weekend Facts for Sunday, June 23, 2024:
The Stanley Cup Final goes to a game seven
Sports history could be made on Monday night as the final game of the professional hockey season will be played. Just one time has a team overcome a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series to win a championship, and the Edmonton Oilers hope to become the second.
Trailing 3-0 to the Florida Panthers, the Oilers unleashed one of the most decisive victories in playoff hockey history in Game 4, winning 8-1 in Edmonton.
However, the series had a serious chance to wind up in a similar fashion to its basketball counterpart, the NBA Finals, which have been taking place at the same time. On the court, the Dallas Mavericks countered the Boston Celtics’ 3-0 series lead with a historic 122-84 thumping in Game 4, only to get plastered 106-88 when the series returned to Boston as the Celtics clinched the title.
On the ice, Edmonton was successful in avoiding a similar fate. On Tuesday, the day after basketball’s Game 5, hockey’s Game 5 brought the Oilers a massive 5-3 victory in Florida, their first of the series and the first time the Oilers won on the road against the Panthers since November 2022.
Any hopes for the Panthers that they could avoid a disaster of near-epic proportions and win the series before a Game 7 were crushed on Friday when the Oilers cruised to a 5-1 victory on home ice. Now, for the first time since the series began, the Stanley Cup Final is on level terms, all knotted up at three games a piece.
Edmonton’s comeback to force a Game 7 after having lost the first three games of the series is extremely rare in and of itself. It’s just the 10th time in NHL postseason history that a team down 3-0 has forced a Game 7, and the third in the Stanley Cup Final. Of those previous nine, five featured the comeback team losing, while four featured them winning, including the 1942 Stanley Cup Final where the Toronto Maple Leafs overcame a 3-0 deficit to beat the Detroit Red Wings for the title. That series, which took place 82 years ago, remains the only time in major American professional sports history that a team overcame a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game series to win a championship.
The most recent time a hockey series reached seven games after one team had a 3-0 lead was in 2014, when the Los Angeles Kings overcame the deficit to beat the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the Playoffs. The last time any of the three major sports in the U.S. that play seven-game series had this phenomenon occur was last year, when the Boston Celtics fell one game short of completing the comeback against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. While the Celtics achieved ultimate revenge this year, no team in the NBA has ever overcome a 3-0 deficit.
In what might possibly be the best two words in sports, tomorrow night’s “Game Seven” might have an even more heightened meaning. Can the Oilers stun the Panthers, and the sports world, and complete a comeback the levels of which have occurred just once before? Or can the Panthers, who looked lost and out of answers in the last game they played, stave off humiliation and win the franchise’s first championship?
Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final will take place tomorrow night at 8:00 pm ET in Sunrise, Florida, with the game airing on ABC and ESPN+.
Although, maybe this was a comeback we all should have seen coming. When a certain former president sent out this message just moments after Game 4 began, when the Panthers held a 3-0 series lead, it was almost as though disaster struck.
For more information on this week’s top story, here’s an article from ESPN - Panthers-Oilers Game 6 takeaways, early look at Game 7
What Zander’s been reading
The ancient Stonehenge monument in England was vandalized by climate protestors last week just before the summer solstice. While the orange paint was able to easily come off, it brings up the question of why efforts like these would be effective to the cause of fighting climate change.
Check out this week’s featured article in The Atlantic - Maybe Don’t Spray-Paint Stonehenge (Article available for free on Apple News.)
Zander’s Facts Sporting Club
Here are the top headlines from the sports world in the Sporting Club:
NBA Finals: The Boston Celtics won the 2024 NBA championship last week after taking down the Dallas Mavericks in five games in the NBA Finals. The Celtics dominated the title-clinching Game 5 106-88 to win the series and the championship. Jaylen Brown was named Finals MVP after averaging 20.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 5.0 assists during the series. The Celtics’ run to the title was one of the most dominant in NBA history, losing just three games the entire postseason and not taking any series to a Game 6 in the Playoffs. The title marks the 18th for the Celtics, breaking a tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most of any NBA franchise.
UEFA EURO: Three nations have so far qualified for the knockout rounds of the UEFA European Championships. With all 24 teams having played two matches each, Germany, Portugal, and Spain are the only teams to have won both matches and qualified to advance out of the group stage. The group stage concludes this week, beginning with Group A’s final matches later today. At 3:00 pm ET, Switzerland faces Germany on Fox, while Scotland takes on Hungary on FS1. Group stage matches wrap up on Wednesday, with the Round of 16 beginning on Saturday. All EURO matches will air on Fox or FS1.
Copa América: The CONMEBOL Copa América opened up on Thursday night with defending champions Argentina continuing their winning ways, beating Canada 2-0. Chile and Peru drew 0-0 on Friday elsewhere in Group A. Group B’s Saturday results featured a Venezuela upset victory over Ecuador 2-1, and Mexico holding onto a 1-0 victory over Jamaica. The United States begins their run in the tournament later today at 6:00 pm ET against Bolivia on Fox and Univision, while Uruguay faces Panama at 9:00 pm ET. Group D includes the final four teams to get underway, with Colombia taking on Paraguay on Monday at 6:00 pm ET on FS1 and Univision, and Brazil-Costa Rica at 9:00 pm ET on FS1 and UniMás.
U.S. Open: Bryson DeChambeau held on to his lead and won the 2024 U.S. Open last Sunday. DeChambeau shot a 71 to fend off a challenge from Rory McIlroy and capture his second U.S. Open title with a score of -6. McIlroy fell apart down the stretch, bogeying three out of the last four holes to finish at -5. Since McIlroy last won a major in 2014, he has finished in the top five of a major tournament 11 times. DeChambeau bounced back after finishing second at the PGA Championship earlier this year to win his second major title, joining the 2020 U.S. Open.
NBA Draft: The 2024 NBA Draft is set to take place later this week, with a new two-day format set to be implemented. The first round of the Draft will be held on Wednesday, beginning at 8:00 pm ET on ABC and ESPN. The second round will then be held the next day on Thursday, beginning at 4:00 pm ET on ESPN. There is currently no consensus for who will be taken with the first overall pick, held by the Atlanta Hawks. Among the top candidates are France’s Zaccharie Risacher and Alexander Sarr, along with UConn’s Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan. The Washington Wizards are slated to pick second, with the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, and Detroit Pistons rounding out the top five.
Rapid-fire Facts
These are top news headlines from the past week in rapid-fire fashion:
Presidential Debate: The first presidential debate of the 2024 United States presidential election is set to take place later this week. On Thursday, President Joe Biden, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, will debate former President Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. In a break from past tradition, the debate will not be organized by the non-profit Commission on Presidential Debates. Instead, CNN will host the debate at its studios in Atlanta, with no studio audience present. While CNN is hosting the debate, many other networks have announced they will also air the debate. The debate will also feature a candidate’s mic being muted when the other candidate is speaking. The debate is scheduled to begin at 9:00 pm ET on Thursday night.
Supreme Court Cases: The Supreme Court released another round of rulings last week in the cases they had heard over the last year. One ruling that was released upheld a tax on foreign income that was created by the 2017 tax law passed by the Trump administration. By a 7-2 vote, the court upheld the tax that is levied on American companies that do business in foreign countries and is expected to generate $340 million. Another ruling upheld a 1994 federal law that prohibits those under restraining orders from owning a firearm, a law meant to protect victims of domestic violence. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only dissenting justice in the 8-1 ruling.
Heat Wave: A scorching heat wave is currently rolling through North America, with over 100 million Americans under heat advisories last week. The first few days of summer brought record-breaking heat to the eastern U.S., with Dulles, Virginia breaking a daily record with a 100°F high on Saturday. Temperatures are expected to remain high for the next several days, with heat indexes continuing to reach into the triple-digits. A timely report from the World Weather Attribution, an international organization of climate scientists, found that a recent heat wave that reached from South America to the U.S. was strengthened by climate change. The report, released last week, also found that that particular heat wave was made 35 times more likely, partially thanks to a heat dome.
Washington Post: An incoming editor of The Washington Post decided last week not to take the job after past controversies recently became exposed. Robert Winnett, the deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph in the United Kingdom, came under fire after a New York Times article found that Winnett and Will Lewis, the current publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles when they worked in London. The previous editor of the Post, Sally Buzbee, abruptly resigned earlier this month.
Maryland Marijuana Pardons: Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore issued one of the largest clemency acts for drug use in the U.S. last week when he pardoned 175,000 people for low-level criminal marijuana convictions. The action automatically forgives every misdemeanor marijuana use or possession charge that was in the Maryland state court system, almost two years after voters in the state approved a ballot measure to decriminalize cannabis. The pardons do not apply to anyone currently serving time in prison and does not clear any criminal records.
Wrapping up the Facts
Before this edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts wraps up, here’s another reminder to check out the latest episodes of the Zander’s Facts podcast. Download and listen to the latest episode of the podcast, along with every episode of Zander’s Facts, wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also listen to every episode of the podcast on this very website. All Zander’s Facts podcast episodes are now available on zandersfacts.com under the “Zander’s Facts” tab for your enjoyment!
That’s a wrap on this week’s edition of Zander’s Weekend Facts. The facts in print return next Sunday, June 30, 2024.
