I’ve seen the Toronto Maple leafs give up many leads and lose games over the years, but none worse than on May 13, 2013. The Toronto Maple Leafs lost to the Boston Bruins 5 - 4 in game 7 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs after being up 4 - 1 with 14 minutes left in the game.

It was 4 - 1…

Fast forward a few years, and it seems like the Leafs’ are making strides in their ability to play with the lead. As their scoring has gone up, so has my curiosity.

Is the 4 - 1 lead the worst lead in hockey?

I decided to crunch the numbers and find out for myself.

The Data:

The data used for this exploration is from games in 2010 to 2019.

All games that included the Vegas Golden Knights are excluded here because of their presence in the league for only 2 of the 8 years.

The Atlanta Thrashers and Phoenix Coyotes have had their data combined with the Winnipeg Jets and Arizona Coyotes respectively because of relocation.

Come Back Wins:

A come back win is defined as a game where the team that loses is actually up in the game by 2 or more goals at a certain point in the game. Of the 11,219 wins in this time period only about 9.2% (1029) have been come back wins, making it an uncommon event in hockey.