Blackhawk's Cup Clincher, in perspective

June 25, 2013

Last night’s Stanley Cup Final Game 6 will almost certainly go down as having one of the most memorable in Cup history. But how does the Blackhawks’ comeback measure up against history? As you might guess, their game tying goal with 1:16 left in the 3rd period is the latest GTG to come in a Stanley Cup clinching game. Their game winning goal with :59 remaining is the latest Stanley Cup winning goal to come before overtime. Here’s the list of the latest Cup clinching goals:

As you can see, last night’s goal was the first time that a team scored the Cup winning goal in the last 5 minutes of regulation. If we narrow the list to include only Finals series that ended in game 6 or 7, we see that last night was the 9th latest Cup winning goal since the modern Finals began in 1927.

Certainly the most impressive aspect of last night’s game was that, not only did the Blackhawks win the game late, they tied it late also. It’s difficult to track down full box scores of games pre-1980s, so it’s hard to me to evaluate where that accomplishment fits in with history. But suffice it to say, the Blackhawk’s night last night will be remembered as one of the craziest endings to a Stanley Cup Finals of all time.