Headed to overtime again?
June 19, 2013 8:25 PM   Subscribe

After Game 1's epic triple overtime and Game 2 went to overtime as well, I went out on a limb and predicted that this Chicago-Boston series will break the record for longest Stanley Cup series in history, in terms of total minutes played. Only problem is, I can't find what the current record is!

I can find times for individual longest games, but not for longest entire Series. Now that Game 4 is going to yet another overtime, we might have a real shot at this! Any hockey fans out there know where to find these numbers?

(Go Bruins!)
posted by platinum to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I think that this page here has all of the info you need to crunch the numbers. Are you including all playoff series or only the final?
posted by ceribus peribus at 8:43 PM on June 19, 2013


Best answer: Great minds think alike* -- I was already thinking about this and found this from a few days ago.


Most Overtime Games in a Series
In 1951 all 5 games of the Montreal vs. Toronto series when to overtime, with Toronto winning the series. That is the most overtime games in a single series in Stanley Cup Finals history.

​​Most Overtime Play in a Stanley Cup Series History

The most overtime in a series is hard to tell because there are no boxscores for the the older series like in 1951. But unless those series went late into many of those OT's it is doubtful that they would be near the top.

So here's our best guess at the most overtime played in a series:

2000 – Dallas vs. New Jersey – 74:41 — NJ won the series in the 2nd OT of game 6. Game 5 was won by Dallas in the 3rd OT.

1999 – Dallas vs. Buffalo – 70:13 - Dallas won the series on in the 3rd OT of game 6 on a controversial (toe in the crease) goal by Brett Hull. Game 1 also went into OT.

2013 – Boston vs. Chicago – 65:56 – After only 2 games these teams have played 65:56 of overtime which is 3rd most in NHL history


Longest Series in Stanley Cup History

With some data missing we can't say for sure which series was the longest, but we can identify the likely 2 longest series:
1950 – Red Wings vs. Rangers – 7 games plus 1 OT and 1 2 OT – Game 4 (~2 minutes) and Game 5 (unknown time) were 1 OT games, and game 7 was 2 OT(28:31) making this the longest series in NHL history, most likely, if the game 5 OT went more than 7 minutes long. Research points to that game going well into OT, but I can not be sure of the exact time. It was an epic series where Red Wing star Gordie Howe was injured in game 1 and did not return. Most people wrote Detroit off, but they rallied to win games 6 and 7 to win the Cup.

2004 – Tampa Bay vs. Calgary – 7 games plus 35:07 OT – after losing game 5 in OT to go down in the series 3-2, Tampa Bay won game 6 in 2 OT and won game 7.

So if the Bruins vs. Blackhawks series goes 7 games, it will be the longest series in NHL history as they have already played 65 minutes of overtime.



* Except for one thing...go Hawks.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:44 PM on June 19, 2013 [10 favorites]


Response by poster: Great find, MCMikeNamara! That's exactly what I was looking for. Congrats on tying up the series - see you in Game 5!
posted by platinum at 9:11 PM on June 19, 2013


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