Yes, it can be done. And the proof is that it's been done before.
The evidence that it's difficult, however, is that only twice in NHL history have teams down by three games in the Stanley Cup playoffs gone on to win the next four.
But there's a wee bit of a suggestion it might not be as difficult for the Red Wings as history suggests. After all, it only takes what hockey players and other athletes are asked to do every time they play their sport: Stay in the moment. Accomplish each required task -- a trip up the ice, a pass, a shot, a save, a shift, a period, a game -- one at a time. Don't consider the future. Don't contemplate the past. Concentrate fully on the undertaking immediately at hand.
Beyond that, according to those who've accomplished the improbable deed, a little elephant dung or an inspiring letter from a 14-year-old girl helps, too.
"You can use that being down 3-0, certainly, as motivation," said Tom George, a noted sports psychologist at the University of Michigan.
" 'There's no tomorrow,' that kind of thing," George said. "But that really has to take place off the ice.
"If you are an athlete in that situation and you carry those kinds of thoughts on to the ice, you are in trouble. You can't play this game that way. It is so fast, so quick; you truly have to be in the moment."
Sports psychologists talk about those essential dos and don'ts, whether it's preparing players in training camp for a good season, or down 3-0 in the conference semifinals, as the Wings are, today, to the suddenly self-assured Sharks. The fact that the thought processes are merely an extension of what players should do in every game inspires some confidence that perhaps four-game comebacks should happen more often.
"If you think about it, it's amazing it's only been done twice in all of the seasons that have been played in the National Hockey League, in all of the Stanley Cup Playoff series," said Dave Lewis, the former coach of the Wings, who was a 21-year-old defenseman for the Islanders in 1975, when they came back from a three-game deficit to beat the Penguins in a quarterfinal series.
"It seems to me it should have happened more often," Lewis said.
Who scent you?
In the very next series, that same year, the Islanders were down again 3-0 against the Flyers and they won the next three, only to lose the seventh game.
Lewis says it might have helped in 1975 that those Islanders were so young.
"We were pretty na?ve. I guess I was pretty na?ve at the time," said Lewis, who later played defense for the Wings, and served as one of Scotty Bowman's assistants during three Stanley Cup years (1997, 1998 and 2002).
"Al Arbour was our coach," Lewis said, of another former defenseman for the Wings. "Al sort of presented it in a way that was basically, as a bunch of young guys, all you really need do is play one shift at a time and come back to the bench and rest. Then go back out. Play a period at a time, and go into the locker room for a rest, and then do it again. And try to win as many of those little battles as you can, he told us. You might win the game.
"And don't think about that you have to win four games to win the series," Lewis said. "I guess the players all bought into it."
The elephant poop might have helped, too.
That year, the Islanders had to play the Rangers in a three-game elimination series to enter the quarterfinals. They beat them. In games at Madison Square Garden, just after the circus had left town, areas of the arena, especially under the stands where the player cavort, had a particularly pungent aroma from the stuff elephants leave behind.
Lewis said two close friends of the Islanders arranged with the training staff of the Rangers to have some of the dung put into a gunny sack and transported out to Long Island.
"It was pretty odd, I guess, and pretty pungent, too," he said, laughing at the recollection.
"But our trainers had to carry it to every game, after we lost three. And we got it and we won Game 4 and the fifth, the sixth and the seventh."
In 1942, the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup after trailing the Wings 3-0 in the Finals. In newspaper clippings of the time, and books written about the history of hockey, it's clear the Leafs players were of a similar mind set: Do your best at each small thing as it occurs during the game, and stay centered.
"Look, fellows, if we can win the next game, then maybe we can win the next game, the next game and the next one," said Walter "Turk" Broda, the Hall of Fame goalie for the Leafs, to reporters in Detroit after the loss in Game 3.
"Maybe Turk isn't dreaming," said Toronto captain and fellow Hall of Famer Syl Apps Sr. "We know we're better than the Wings. During the season, we beat them more often than they beat us.
"Let's not think about being behind three games to none. Let's play one game at a time. Let's plan to win this next game."
Emotional plea
It helped, too, that a 14-year-old girl, who had moved from Toronto to Detroit, wrote an emotional letter about her fondest desires for a Toronto victory. The letter was read to the players in the locker room.
Suddenly, the focus was a bit less on having to win four consecutive games than making a young girl with considerable adolescent emotion invested in the Maple Leafs happy.
The Leafs went on to win the next four, stunning the Wings in an era before Gordie Howe came to town.
"Really, it is just an extension of what they should be doing throughout the season," said Patrick Cohn, a prominent sports psychologist in Orlando, Florida, who advised PGA pros and NASCAR drivers. "But it's hard to do that, to be in the moment, when you get to the end of the season and you are in the playoffs, and it becomes do-or-die.
"You can't go out there with a do-or-die attitude, we got to make this happen," Cohn said. "That is too much in the future, the way we work with athletes. That is down the road."
"You can get too dejected and demoralized, if you keep thinking ahead, that way," George said. "Break it down into much smaller, much more manageable obstacles.
"It's a simple idea. But, for athletes, it's easy to get in trouble when they worry about what happened in the past and what will happen in the future," he said.. "They need to try to play while their mindset is on the one thing at hand, rather than ruminating or forecasting."
One guy around town has performed the feat, in another sport.
Johnny Damon, the Tigers' outfielder, played for the Boston Red Sox when they were down by three games and two outs from elimination in the 2004 American League Championship Series, and then roared back to win that fourth game and the next three.
From the clubhouse in Minnesota Wednesday, Damon was asked for his advice about such circumstances.
"When you're down three games to zero, your only thought is to win Game 4," Damon said. "If you win Game 4, you win Game 5 -- and if you win Game 5, you know you're going to seven."
The evidence that it's difficult, however, is that only twice in NHL history have teams down by three games in the Stanley Cup playoffs gone on to win the next four.
But there's a wee bit of a suggestion it might not be as difficult for the Red Wings as history suggests. After all, it only takes what hockey players and other athletes are asked to do every time they play their sport: Stay in the moment. Accomplish each required task -- a trip up the ice, a pass, a shot, a save, a shift, a period, a game -- one at a time. Don't consider the future. Don't contemplate the past. Concentrate fully on the undertaking immediately at hand.
Beyond that, according to those who've accomplished the improbable deed, a little elephant dung or an inspiring letter from a 14-year-old girl helps, too.
"You can use that being down 3-0, certainly, as motivation," said Tom George, a noted sports psychologist at the University of Michigan.
" 'There's no tomorrow,' that kind of thing," George said. "But that really has to take place off the ice.
"If you are an athlete in that situation and you carry those kinds of thoughts on to the ice, you are in trouble. You can't play this game that way. It is so fast, so quick; you truly have to be in the moment."
Sports psychologists talk about those essential dos and don'ts, whether it's preparing players in training camp for a good season, or down 3-0 in the conference semifinals, as the Wings are, today, to the suddenly self-assured Sharks. The fact that the thought processes are merely an extension of what players should do in every game inspires some confidence that perhaps four-game comebacks should happen more often.
"If you think about it, it's amazing it's only been done twice in all of the seasons that have been played in the National Hockey League, in all of the Stanley Cup Playoff series," said Dave Lewis, the former coach of the Wings, who was a 21-year-old defenseman for the Islanders in 1975, when they came back from a three-game deficit to beat the Penguins in a quarterfinal series.
"It seems to me it should have happened more often," Lewis said.
Who scent you?
In the very next series, that same year, the Islanders were down again 3-0 against the Flyers and they won the next three, only to lose the seventh game.
Lewis says it might have helped in 1975 that those Islanders were so young.
"We were pretty na?ve. I guess I was pretty na?ve at the time," said Lewis, who later played defense for the Wings, and served as one of Scotty Bowman's assistants during three Stanley Cup years (1997, 1998 and 2002).
"Al Arbour was our coach," Lewis said, of another former defenseman for the Wings. "Al sort of presented it in a way that was basically, as a bunch of young guys, all you really need do is play one shift at a time and come back to the bench and rest. Then go back out. Play a period at a time, and go into the locker room for a rest, and then do it again. And try to win as many of those little battles as you can, he told us. You might win the game.
"And don't think about that you have to win four games to win the series," Lewis said. "I guess the players all bought into it."
The elephant poop might have helped, too.
That year, the Islanders had to play the Rangers in a three-game elimination series to enter the quarterfinals. They beat them. In games at Madison Square Garden, just after the circus had left town, areas of the arena, especially under the stands where the player cavort, had a particularly pungent aroma from the stuff elephants leave behind.
Lewis said two close friends of the Islanders arranged with the training staff of the Rangers to have some of the dung put into a gunny sack and transported out to Long Island.
"It was pretty odd, I guess, and pretty pungent, too," he said, laughing at the recollection.
"But our trainers had to carry it to every game, after we lost three. And we got it and we won Game 4 and the fifth, the sixth and the seventh."
In 1942, the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup after trailing the Wings 3-0 in the Finals. In newspaper clippings of the time, and books written about the history of hockey, it's clear the Leafs players were of a similar mind set: Do your best at each small thing as it occurs during the game, and stay centered.
"Look, fellows, if we can win the next game, then maybe we can win the next game, the next game and the next one," said Walter "Turk" Broda, the Hall of Fame goalie for the Leafs, to reporters in Detroit after the loss in Game 3.
"Maybe Turk isn't dreaming," said Toronto captain and fellow Hall of Famer Syl Apps Sr. "We know we're better than the Wings. During the season, we beat them more often than they beat us.
"Let's not think about being behind three games to none. Let's play one game at a time. Let's plan to win this next game."
Emotional plea
It helped, too, that a 14-year-old girl, who had moved from Toronto to Detroit, wrote an emotional letter about her fondest desires for a Toronto victory. The letter was read to the players in the locker room.
Suddenly, the focus was a bit less on having to win four consecutive games than making a young girl with considerable adolescent emotion invested in the Maple Leafs happy.
The Leafs went on to win the next four, stunning the Wings in an era before Gordie Howe came to town.
"Really, it is just an extension of what they should be doing throughout the season," said Patrick Cohn, a prominent sports psychologist in Orlando, Florida, who advised PGA pros and NASCAR drivers. "But it's hard to do that, to be in the moment, when you get to the end of the season and you are in the playoffs, and it becomes do-or-die.
"You can't go out there with a do-or-die attitude, we got to make this happen," Cohn said. "That is too much in the future, the way we work with athletes. That is down the road."
"You can get too dejected and demoralized, if you keep thinking ahead, that way," George said. "Break it down into much smaller, much more manageable obstacles.
"It's a simple idea. But, for athletes, it's easy to get in trouble when they worry about what happened in the past and what will happen in the future," he said.. "They need to try to play while their mindset is on the one thing at hand, rather than ruminating or forecasting."
One guy around town has performed the feat, in another sport.
Johnny Damon, the Tigers' outfielder, played for the Boston Red Sox when they were down by three games and two outs from elimination in the 2004 American League Championship Series, and then roared back to win that fourth game and the next three.
From the clubhouse in Minnesota Wednesday, Damon was asked for his advice about such circumstances.
"When you're down three games to zero, your only thought is to win Game 4," Damon said. "If you win Game 4, you win Game 5 -- and if you win Game 5, you know you're going to seven."
