The Evansville IceMen have their backs against the wall entering tonight’s Game 4 of their Opening Round series with the Missouri Mavericks as they trail in the series three games to none. 

The Mavs were 4-1-1 against the IceMen in the regular season and in the post-season, rolled out to three straight wins to take the commanding lead and place themselves on the doorstep of a series sweep.

The IceMen will not only have to fight long odds to win the series, no team in CHL/WPHL playoff history has erased a 3-0 deficit to win a series, but they will have to fight the odds just to win a game.

A team getting up 3-0 in a best-of-7 series has happened 25 previous times.  In those games, a series sweep has happened 18 times (72%) and a five-game series victory has happened four more times meaning that only three times in the 25 previous chances has a team comeback to force a game 6 or 7 once falling behind three games to none.

Only the Wichita Thunder/Oklahoma City Blazers in 1998 saw a team lose three straight and then win three straight to force a Game 7.  The Blazers were the team that forced the Game 7 but the Thunder battled to win Game 7 in overtime to avoid seeing their 3-0 series lead go for nothing.

The Mavs go for the sweep over Evansville tonight on CHL-TV!  Face-off is scheduled for 7:05 PM CST.