After four consecutive sweeps in the NHL Finals, the NHL brass is no doubt relieved that the 1999 NHL Finals was as well-fought and competitive as it was. As a mid-series gauge of that competitiveness, it was often noted on ESPN and FOX that a very small time percentage of the 1999 NHL Finals featured leads of two or more goals. Indeed: The only such leads were by Dallas, for 0:26 in Game 2 and for 4:39 in Game 5. The 1999 NHL Finals lasted a total of 414:51, of which only 5:05 (1.225%) featured the aforementioned two-goal leads by Dallas. That is the second-lowest such percentage in NHL best-of-7 series history, second only to the 1968 NHL Finals (between Montreal and St. Louis, in which no lead was ever greater than one goal). In this regard, the 1999 NHL Finals bumps the 1951 NHL Finals (between Toronto and Montreal) to third place: In that 1951 series, only 6:07 of a 321:41 series (1.901%) featured leads of two or more goals.

If we formally define a "least percentage of best-of-7 NHL series time spent with leads greater than or equal to two goals" statistic, we find, interestingly enough, that the St. Louis Blues helped set the low and the high values for this statistic ... in consecutive best-of-7 playoff series, no less. In the 1968 NHL Finals, Montreal swept St. Louis, but the value of that statistic was 0%, since no lead of two or more goals ever occurred. Never before or since has such an NHL best-of-7 playoff series occurred. But in the 1969 NHL Quarterfinals, St. Louis swept Philadelphia, and the value of that statistic was an NHL-high 74.097%. WhoWins™ uses the term "annihilation" to describe a swept best-of-7 NHL playoff series in which the losing team did not for even one second have a lead. In the 1969 NHL Quarterfinals annihilation by St. Louis of Philadelphia, St. Louis enjoyed leads of two or more goals for almost three-quarters of the 240 minutes of that series. The four games in the series were tied for only 9:36 (4%) of the time [the shortest such time in the 396 NHL best-of-7 playoff series from 1939 through 1998]; St. Louis led the other 96% of the time. In three of the four games did St. Louis score the game's first goal in the first minute of play. From the first period of Game 2 through the second period of Game 4, St. Louis tallied 12 straight goals, and outscored Philadelphia in the series 17-3.

To add that all-important context to the statistic defined above, consider that 136,644:26 is the time of the 2200 best-of-7 format NHL playoff games from 1939 through 1998. Of that 136,644:26, the duration of ties or one-goal leads was 93,810:12, or 68.65% of the time. Roughly the same percentage is the game-winning percentage of the team that scores first in the 2200 NHL best-of-7 format playoff games from 1939 through 1998: The game record of first-scorers is 1506-694 (68.45%).

21 June 1999