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The Carolina Hurricanes were swept by the Florida Panthers in the NHL's Eastern Conference finals on Wednesday night.
Along with Carolina, the Vegas Golden Knights can sweep the Dallas Stars on Thursday night to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
Although sweeps don't occur often, they usually happen a couple of times every year. So since the NHL changed to a best-of-seven series, how many sweeps have happened?
Sweeps in NHL playoff history
The NHL changed to a best-of-seven series in 1987 and entering the 2023 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff, 75 of 525 series have ended in a sweep.
In 2023, only one sweep has happened as it was the Panthers sweeping the Hurricanes taking the total to 76. Although the series was 4-0, it was a very close series.
“It didn’t seem like a 4-0 sweep to me,” Jordan Staal said... "We were right there. The boys battled hard. We gave it all we got. I’m proud of this group. We’ve been kind of kicked in the crotch all year long, and we kept pressing and pushing, and tonight was no different.”
As mentioned, the Vegas Golden Knights are looking to add to that total on Thursday night.
"We are just playing as a team," Vegas forward Ivan Barbashev said. "When you do things right, you get rewarded. I think that's what we've been doing the whole playoffs.
Most sweeps in a year?
Since the NHL changed to a best-of-seven series in 1987, the most amount of sweeps in a playoff is 5, which happened in 1992. Two sweeps happened in the quarter-final, two happened in the semi-finals, and the Stanley Cup Final was also a sweep.
Outside of five, the next highest amount of sweeps in an NHL playoff is four which has happened three times and most recently happened in 2019.
The most common amount of sweeps in the NHL playoff is two which has happened 13 times since 1987.
Has an NHL playoff ever gone without a sweep?
Only four times in NHL's history have an entire playoff gone without a sweep, which was in 2020. The other times no sweeps occurred happened in 2016, 2002, and 1991.
