The First-Round League Playoff Series: Why Is It So Difficult To Sweep?

[Dave Berger]

Link to article

Discuss. 

Dave

[Blackheart]

Interesting stuff Dave...

I took your numbers and compared them to longtime league favorite DU over the same time period. 

Average goals scored/goals allowed in first-round home playoff games (2003-2025):

North Dakota Home  quarterfinal games (42 games) 

Friday: 4.78 goals scored/1.50 goals allowed (sixteen wins, two losses)
Saturday: 3.56 goals scored/2.22 goals allowed (fourteen wins, four losses)
Sunday: 3.67 goals scored/1.67 goals allowed (six wins, zero losses)

DU Home quarterfinal games (46 games)

Friday: 3.45 goals scored/1.95 goals allowed (fourteen wins, six losses)
Saturday: 3.3 goals scored/1.9 goals allowed (sixteen wins, four losses)
Sunday: 4.16 goals scored/2.83 goals allowed (three wins, three losses)

UND seriously outplays the Pios in overall Friday games, Saturday's are pretty much a push, and DU opens up the offense on Sundays but gives up more defensively.

Impressive that UND is 18-0 in the home series (36-6 overall game record) vs DU's 15-5 in home series.(33-13 overall game record) 

 

[fightingsioux4life]

I downloaded the 2025-26 UND Hockey Media Guide and looked these stats up. Prior to 1987-88, the two-game total goal series format was used, so this covers the period from 1987-88 to 2024-25. The 2019-2020 playoffs didn’t happen because of COVID-19 and the 2020-2021 playoffs consisted of an 8 team single elimination tournament at REA in Grand Forks:

First Round League Playoff History (Since 1988)

Last Home Playoff Series Loss (2 Game Sweep): 1996 (Wisconsin)

Last Home Playoff Series Loss (3 Games): 1989 (Denver)

 

Last Road Playoff Series Loss (2 Game Sweep): 2019 (Denver)

Last Road Playoff Series Loss (3 Games): 1992 (Minnesota)

 

Last Home Playoff Series Win (2 Game Sweep): Miami (2024)

Last Home Playoff Series Win (3 Games): Colorado College (2014)

 

Last Road Playoff Series Win (2 Game Sweep): Omaha (2025)

Last Road Playoff Series Win (3 Games): Omaha (2023)

[Blackheart]

The Captain Obvious point here is that the quarterfinal home teams earned their spot through winning more games and finishing in the upper half of the conference.  The higher you finish, the "worse" team you get to play in that first round matchup.  If you are constantly finishing 1 or 2 in the conference you typically get easier teams to play as opposed to a 4v5 matchup.  I'm surprised in the large margin of victory on Friday's as opposed to the other days.  Seems like their opponents give it all they have on Saturday to avoid elimination and the ones that manage to win don't have a lot left in the tank for a Sunday game.

[Sodbuster]

Hey, Blackheart......I would love to see the 2010 3rd game playoff win against the Gophers. Is it not on the menu or did I miss it?

[farce poobah]

23 hours ago, Dave Berger said:

Link to article

Discuss. 

Dave

Based on a quick scan of historical schedules, it looks like sweeps in the playoffs are about as common as sweeps in the regular season.  Data muddied by history.  Regular season games:  used to be allowed to tie; or now, OT is played differently than postseason. 

Some of those OT games were GREAT games. 

[Blackheart]

4 hours ago, Sodbuster said:

Hey, Blackheart......I would love to see the 2010 3rd game playoff win against the Gophers. Is it not on the menu or did I miss it?

I’ll look…for some reason I don’t think I have that one.

[Godsmack]

8 hours ago, Blackheart said:

The Captain Obvious point here is that the quarterfinal home teams earned their spot through winning more games and finishing in the upper half of the conference.  The higher you finish, the "worse" team you get to play in that first round matchup.  If you are constantly finishing 1 or 2 in the conference you typically get easier teams to play as opposed to a 4v5 matchup.  I'm surprised in the large margin of victory on Friday's as opposed to the other days.  Seems like their opponents give it all they have on Saturday to avoid elimination and the ones that manage to win don't have a lot left in the tank for a Sunday game.

Very true. Last year, CC had to travel to Denver for the first round quarterfinals. The Tigers won a closely contested first game, 3-1, with Denver outmatching CC on Saturday, winning 6-4. Kaidan Mbereko left game two with an injury and that might have taken the air out of the sails for CC as they appeared to have nothing left in the tank, getting smoked on Sunday, 9-2 with little used Carsen Musser in net.