Sporting Madness

TSN's Gino Reda tweeted an interesting question following the Flyers' improbable 4-3 comeback victory [ Broad Street Hockey ] over the Bruins [ Jon Bois , SB Nation ] tonight; was this the greatest comeback in NHL history? I'm tempted to say yes. To start with, coming back from a 3-0 series deficit in a best-of-seven in any sport is incredibly rare. It's never been done in the NBA, it's been accomplished exactly once in Major League Baseball and it's happened three times now in hockey. The other two occasions were the Toronto Maple Leafs' comeback against Detroit in 1942 and the New York Islanders' comeback against Pittsburgh in 1975 . Let's take a look at them and see how they stack up. First, the Maple Leafs' comeback in 1942. This was in the Stanley Cup Finals, so they get bonus points for that, and it was also the first Cup Finals to go seven games, so that's worth even more points. That was a tremendous Maple Leafs' team, f...

Just to continue on with the Stanley Cup playoff predictions: the Detroit-Pittsburgh series kicks off tonight, so I thought I'd put a quick post up with my pick. I love Pittsburgh's offensive firepower, and I have more faith in their goaltending (Fleury instead of Osgood), but I don't trust their defence. Also, Detroit has the experience, they have the scoring depth, and they have some amazing defencemen in Lidstrom, Rafalski and Kronwall. I've been going against the Red Wings all playoffs long, thinking that someone would be able to expose their flaws of only average goaltending and a high collective age, but no one in the West was able to handle them. It should be an interesting series, and I'll be rooting for Pittsburgh all the way, but my prediction is Wings in six.

So, Round Two's officially wrapped up and I went 2-2 with my predictions , continuing my .500 mark (now 6-6 overall). I got the Penguins and Stars, but flubbed on the Avs and Habs. For this round, I tied with Bob McKenzie , Eric Duhatschek and Maggie the Monkey, lost to Allan Maki (who's now a ridiculous 11-1 overall), Darren Dreger and David Shoalts (3-1), but beat James Mirtle , Matt Sekeres and Zanstorm (1-3). Most of them are beating me overall, though, due to my 4-4 first-round efforts. Here's my picks for the conference finals. East: Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia: Penguins in six. Nice to see the biggest Battle of Pennsylvania since Gettysburg reinvigorated. I like Pittsburgh here because of their overwhelming offense and great goaltending from Marc-Andre Fleury. Philly will try and run them out of the rink in the old Broad Street Bullies model, but ultimately, that won't be enough to prevail overall. Look for home-ice advantage to play a big role in this on...

Congratulations are in order to Gordie Howe, who turns 80 today. There are some great retrospectives on his career from NHL.com 's John McGourty and Shaun P. Roarke , as well as the Canadian Press ( via The Hockey News ). Howe was my favorite player growing up, even though I never had the privilege of watching him play. I fell in love with the Howe legend from reading about him, particularly the part about his move to the WHA to play with his sons Mark and Marty after the Red Wings decided he was too old. Mostly because of him, I was a diehard Hartford Whalers fan growing up (and still have a Whalers jersey). As Kevin Allen of USA Today points out, one of the best things about Howe was he could do anything. "Bobby Orr was the most spectacular hockey player I ever witnessed," he writes. "Wayne Gretzky is the sport's most creative offensive star and Mario Lemieux is probably the most dangerous scorer ever to lace up skates. But as extraordinary as these three...