Gloria! The Blues’ five-decade wait is over and the team is the Stanley Cup champion after a convincing 4-1 victory over the Bruins in Boston in last week’s Game 7. The worst team points-wise in the league as late as January, a coaching change, the entry of Jordan Binnington between the pipes and a heck of a lot of good hockey later, they are champs for the first time in 52 years of existence.
That means the title of “longest active Cup drought” shifts. And despite the fact that the Blues, Capitals, Kings, Ducks, Hurricanes and Lightning have all hoisted their first-ever Cups in the last 15 years, there are still plenty of droughts to go around. Here are the five longest active stretches without a title in the NHL:
5) Florida Panthers – 22 years:
Of the 10 teams added to the league since 1991, it looked like the Panthers would be the poster child for success. After two years of barely sub-.500 hockey, in Year 3 Florida was in the 1996 Stanley Cup Final, losing to the Avalanche. Since then, though, it’s been a struggle. The franchise has made the postseason just four times since then, and hasn’t won a playoff round in 22 years, the longest active drought in the league.
4) Montreal Canadiens – 25 years:
Once upon a time, when the league consisted of just six (and then 12) teams, it seemed impossible that the mighty Habs and their 24 Cups would go a quarter-century without a title. Alas, the 1993 championship was the last not only for Montreal, but (infamously) by any Canadian team. It would take 16 years to even make it out of the second round, when they lost to the Flyers in the Eastern Conference Final in 2010, then again in 2014 to the Rangers. They’ve made the playoffs just once in the last four years.
3) New York Islanders – 34 years:
When Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers ended the Isles’ dynasty in 1984, the franchise didn’t go into a complete tailspin. After winning four consecutive Cups, the aging group made the playoffs for five years in a row, but it’s been a struggle since then. The Islanders went 23 years between series victories from 1993-2016, and hasn’t been beyond the second round since that ’93 season.
2) Arizona Coyotes – 39 years:
Whether it’s the original Winnipeg Jets, the Phoenix Coyotes or the current Arizona squad, success has been hard to come by. The team hasn’t made a Stanley Cup Final in its history, and has only been to the conference finals once, losing in five games to the Kings in 2012. The team hasn’t been to the postseason since that ’12 run, and outside of a three year stretch from 2010-12, has missed the playoffs every year, as the franchise has struggled with ownership consistency since moving to the desert in 1996.
1) Toronto Maple Leafs – 51 years:
If you think the city went nuts for the Raptors’ first championship, just wait and see what happens whenever the Leafs finally hoist Lord Stanley once again. The owners of 13 Stanley Cups, Toronto hasn’t won a title since 1967, capping a stretch of four titles in six seasons. The next year expansion occurred, and it’s been downhill since. There hasn’t been a trip to the Final since that ’67 season, as the Leafs are 0-5 in conference final series in that span (1978, ’93, ’94, ’99 and ’02), with only one of those series going to seven games (losing in ’93 to Gretzky and the Kings).