NHL Playoff Sweeps Without Surrendering Lead

When a team wins the first four games of a playoff series they are said to have swept their opponent. When the victor does so without ever relinquishing the lead in any of the four games, they have completed the rare feat of a perfect sweep.

A perfect sweep, often referred to as an annihilation, has happened only 16 times in the 591 best-of-seven NHL Stanley Cup playoff series played through 2012, and only four times over the past 20 seasons. That's only 2.7% of all such seven game series or 1 in 36. The chart below describes every such perfect sweep, showing the year, teams and round.

Date: Matchup (Round)
1946: MTL over CHI (S)
1952: DET over MTL (F)
1954: MTL over BOS (S)
1960: MTL over CHI (S)
1960: MTL over TOR (F)
1969: BOS over TOR (Q)
1969: STL over PHI (Q)
1977: MTL over STL (Q)
1978: MTL over TOR (S)
1979: NYI over CHI (Q)
1987: DET over CHI (P)
1989: PIT over NYR (P)
1992: CHI over DET (Q)
1995: DET over SJS (Q)
2000: DET over LAK (P)
2009: DET over CLB (P)

(P = Preliminary, Q = Quarterfinal, S = Semifinal, F = Final)

The Montreal Canadiens lead the league with six such sweeps and are the only team to do it twice in a single postseason. That happened in 1960 when Montreal annihilated both the Chicago Blackhawks and Toronto Maple Leafs en route to their fifth straight Stanley Cup championship. Chicago, on the other hand, has been on the losing end of a perfect sweep four times, leading all teams in this category. Only twice has a team been annihilated in the Stanley Cup Final, the last time being 53 years ago.

Thus far, the only series in the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs where a team has never trailed involves the Quarterfinal matchup between Pittsburgh and Ottawa, where the Penguins lead the series 2-0. With plenty of hockey to play it's far too early to project a sweep, let alone an annihilation.