Even those who predicted Vancouver would eliminate the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues didn’t foresee a blowout 6-2 Canucks win in Game Six. 

So many elements made this a genuinely shocking and historic ending to the first-round series.

“At times we looked like a junior team out there the way we were turning the puck over, not playing the right way,” said St. Louis forward Ryan O’Reilly, the 2019 Conn Smythe Trophy winner. “And it came back to bite us.”

In Game Six, St. Louis held Vancouver shotless for close to 12 minutes at one point and later hemmed the Canucks in their own zone for 2:38. However, Blues goalie Jordan Binnington – who was brilliant last year – allowed four goals on 18 shots before being yanked in favour of Jake Allen.

Apart from injured veteran forwards Vladimir Tarasenko and Alexander Steen, the Blues had virtually the same lineup as the 2019 team that topped the Boston Bruins in seven games for the Cup. Meanwhile, 2020 marks the first playoffs for 10 Canucks.

Notably, in the 2010’s, the last four Cup-winning clubs to get ousted in the first round the following year all lost Game Seven, not Game Six (Chicago to Vancouver in 2011, Boston to Washington in 2012, Chicago to St. Louis in 2016, and Washington to Carolina in 2019).

While Canucks fans celebrate the prowess of Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, and Jacob Markstrom and gear up for a second-round clash with the Vegas Golden Knights, historians will ponder Friday’s four-goal margin of victory over the Blues.

So how does this outcome stack up against other famous hockey dethronements?

Here are IIHF.com’s picks for the five biggest blowouts that eliminated defending champions in Stanley Cup, IIHF, or other top-level international playoff games. (Note: no defending Olympic champion in either men’s or women’s hockey has ever lost an elimination game by a blowout score. This overview does not include round-robin games such as the 5-0 victory by Canada’s Penticton Vees over the Soviets at the 1955 IIHF World Championship.)

1) Soviet Union 8, Canada 1 (1981 Canada Cup final)

Canada’s powerhouse team defeated Czechoslovakia in the inaugural 1976 Canada Cup finals, and the hosts looked poised to repeat at the 1981 sequel with a top line of Wayne Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, and Gilbert Perreault. Unfortunately, Perreault broke his ankle in a 4-3 win over Sweden. And the Scotty Bowman-coached Canadians may have gotten overconfident after hammering the USSR 7-3 to complete the group stage.

The Soviets, who had won the 1978 and 1979 Worlds before stumbling against the Americans in their 1980 Olympics “Miracle on Ice” loss, had a dream one-game final at the Montreal Forum. Goalie Vladislav Tretiak shut the door in the first period as Canada outshot his team 12-4. In the second period, the floodgates opened. Sergei Shepelev scored a hat trick and Igor Larionov added a pair in the 8-1 slaughter. It remains the worst defeat ever suffered by Canada in best-on-best competition.

In his 1987 autobiography Tretiak: The Legend, the IIHF Centennial All-Star Team goalie wrote: “Once we’d scored a few goals, I saw something I’d never seen before – the Canadians seemed to give up. They hung their heads and, like an army given the order to surrender, they lost their hearts. I felt sorry for their goaltender, Mike Liut. His team had left him to be torn to pieces by our forwards.”

2) Detroit Red Wings 7, Colorado Avalanche 0: 2002 Western Conference final

This wasn’t just the denouement of what hockey writer Adrian Dater described in his book Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings v. Colorado Avalanche: The Inside Story of Pro Sports’ Nastiest and Best Rivalry of Its Era. It also set a record for the biggest margin of victory in an NHL Game Seven.

Detroit goalie Dominik Hasek earned bragging rights in his rivalry with Colorado’s Patrick Roy. “The Dominator” famously outdueled Roy in the Czech Republic’s 2-1 semi-final shootout victory over Canada at the 1998 Nagano Olympics. After this 19-save shutout at Joe Louis Arena, Hasek said of Roy: “I didn’t have time to feel bad for him. That can happen to any goalie.” 

Roy, who had won his record-setting third Conn Smythe Trophy when Colorado beat New Jersey for the 2001 Cup, let in four first-period Detroit goals. David Aebischer replaced “Saint Patrick” when Fredrik Olausson made it 6-0 Detroit in the second period.

Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman admitted post-game: “After the first period, it’s 4-0 and we're thinking: ‘This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.’ We’re as surprised as anybody.”

3) Russia 7, USA 2: 2005 World Junior semi-final

In 2004, the hockey gods were on America’s side. The U.S. reaped its first IIHF World Junior Championship title of all time in a 4-3 comeback win over Canada in Helsinki. Patrick O’Sullivan was credited with the winner after Canadian goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s third-period clearing attempt bounced in off defenceman Braydon Coburn.

However, in 2005 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, it was a different story. Alexander Ovechkin and Yevgeni Malkin set the pace with two goals apiece in the semi-final. Russia outshot the U.S. 43-24 in a chippy affair full of stick fouls. Phil Kessel, who would lead the 2006 tournament in scoring, didn’t register a shot on goal.

These star-studded Russians, though, had their own comeuppance waiting. They would lose the 2005 final 6-1 to a Canadian juggernaut featuring Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf, and Corey Perry.

4) Canada 5, USA 1: 2007 Women’s Worlds final

Fun fact: four of the six Olympic women’s finals and 13 of the 18 IIHF Ice Hockey Women’s World Championships between Canada and the U.S. have been decided by either one or two goals. However, in 2007, the host Canadians took revenge on their archrivals for the 1-0 gold medal loss in 2005 in Sweden, where Angela Ruggiero’s shootout goal gave the U.S. its first Women’s Worlds title ever.

It was a balanced attack for coach Mel Davidson’s Canadian women, with five different scorers at Winnipeg’s ecstatic MTS Centre. Jayna Hefford got the eventual game-winner early in the second period. Scoring leader and MVP Hayley Wickenheiser chipped in her eighth goal and 14th point.

Adding injury to insult, Gillian Apps obliterated U.S. goalie Chanda Gunn with a high hit that knocked her mask off. It was a tough introduction to IIHF competition for budding American superstar Hilary Knight, who finished pointless in five games.

Despite losing their crown, the Americans would rebound to dominate the Women’s Worlds, winning eight of the next nine tournaments.

5) USA 8, Russia 3: 2013 Worlds quarter-final

At the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship, Alexander Ovechkin averaged two points per game. Unfortunately, the three-time Hart Trophy winner from the Washington Capitals only played one game. And his goal and assist came in a devastating 8-3 elimination loss to the unheralded Americans in Helsinki.

After owning the 2012 tournament in Sweden and Finland with 10 straight wins, the Russians had already stumbled in 2013 with two round-robin losses, including a 2-1 upset by France. Craig Smith of the Nashville Predators caught fire with five assists in this quarter-final thrashing. Captain Paul Stastny of the Colorado Avalanche added two goals and two helpers. Russian starter Ilya Bryzgalov yielded his place to Semyon Varlamov late in the second frame.

This fiasco set a record for the most goals ever given up by Russia in one World Championship game. Speculation swirled around head coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov, but the 1984 Olympic gold medalist kept his job until the apocalyptic 3-1 quarter-final loss to Finland at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.