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Hockey

KINGS REPORT

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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The odds are working against the Kings.

Since 1968, 164 teams have faced a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-seven playoff series but only 22 (13.4%) have rallied to win the series. That has become even more difficult in the last 10 years (1988-97). During that span, only nine of 71 teams that trailed, 2-0, won a best-of-seven series, or 12.7% And it only gets worse. Since 1968, 91 teams have faced 3-0 deficits but only one has won: the 1975 New York Islanders, who overcame a 3-0 lead held by Pittsburgh in a quarterfinal series.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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