Oilers once again tasked with ending Canada's Cup drought
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For a second straight spring, the Edmonton Oilers have a chance to bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada.
After coming agonizingly close last year by forcing a Game 7 with the Florida Panthers following a 3-0 series deficit only to come up short in the deciding game, Connor McDavid and co. have another shot at those very same Panthers. Whether or not the last Canadian team standing in the NHL playoffs will be rallied around by the rest of the country is always a matter of debate, but what isn’t is that the lengthy championship drought in Canada’s national sport has become a sore spot from coast-to-coast.
It’s been 11,682 days since a Canadian team has hoisted the Stanley Cup.
If you are 32 or younger, you have never seen a Canadian team win a Stanley Cup.
Since a Canadian team last won the Stanley Cup, Quebec City lost its team. Winnipeg lost its team, but then got another one back. Vancouver got a basketball team and then lost it. The Montreal Expos split time in Puerto Rico for a bit and then moved to Washington, DC.
Yes, the world has changed more than a great deal since that night when Gary Bettman handed the Stanley Cup over to Guy Carbonneau on June 9, 1993 after the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Los Angeles Kings in five games to make it 24 championships. Nobody knew that night would begin a drought for Canadian hockey that has lasted into a fourth decade. How could they? In the 32 years preceding the Canadiens’ Cup in 1993, a Canadian team had claimed Lord Stanley’s Mug on 20 occasions. Why wouldn’t that continue?
Well, for a couple of major reasons. Expansion, of course, was a big one. By 1993, there were 24 teams in the NHL. That was up four from the previous two seasons. Five years after that, it was 27 and now today, we’re at 32 with only seven of those playing north of the 49th parallel. When fewer than 25 per cent of the league’s teams are Canadian, your chances of winning have steeply declined.
The biggest factor, though, is money. Its American cousin has hammered the Canadian dollar’s purchasing power for much of the past 30-plus years. In 1991, the Canadian dollar reached nearly $0.90 USD. That would be the high point for the decade. It would nosedive for a majority of the next 10 years with the low point coming in 2002 when the Loonie bottomed out at $0.6179 USD. While the CDN flirted with parity at a number of points during the aughts and even went above the USD in 2011, it would crash back down again by 2015. Fluctuations have been relatively muted over the past 10 years with the CDN settling in around the $0.68-to-$0.75 USD range, but that still represents a steep surcharge for the seven teams who pay their players in American dollars and collect revenue in Canadian.
Still, the drought has almost ended a number of times over these past 32 years. When the Oilers take the ice on Wednesday night at Rogers Place, they will be the seventh Canadian team to skate in a final and just might be the best positioned to hang a banner in the Great White North come next fall. We all know what happened last year, but let’s take a look back at the other six teams that tried and failed since the Habs last won in 1993.
Geoff Courtnall Canucks Mike Richter Rangers 1994 Vancouver Canucks
In the spring of 1994, the Vancouver Canucks almost made it nine Canadian Stanley Cup winners in 11 seasons. Pat Quinn’s Canucks reached the Stanley Cup Final on the back of an improbable run. The seventh seed in the Western Conference, the Canucks looked dead to rights in their opening-round series against the Calgary Flames, falling behind 3-1 in the series. The team would go on to win three straight overtime games, including a memorable Game 7 where “The Russian Rocket” Pavel Bure completed his hat-trick in double overtime to stun the fans at the Saddledome.
The second round was a comparative cakewalk for the Canucks, dispatching the Dallas Stars in five games, before an all-Canadian Western Conference Final against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who had been denied a trip to the Cup Final the previous spring by the Kings in seven games. After the Leafs took Game 1 in OT, the Canucks won the next four straight to complete the gentleman’s sweep and move on to their first chance at a championship since 1982.
In the final, the Canucks would meet a team dealing with destiny of their own in the New York Rangers, with the Blueshirts attempting to end a 54-year Cup drought, the longest active barren run in the NHL at the time. The Rangers advanced to the Cup after an absolute war with the New Jersey Devils in the conference final that saw Mark Messier famously guarantee a win in Game 6 with the team down 3-2 in the series. The Rangers would win Game 7 in double OT on a goal from rugged winger Stephane Matteau.
The Canucks would demonstrate the kind of resilience that became their hallmark over the course of the playoffs. After winning the first game in overtime at Madison Square Garden on a Greg Adams goal, the Canucks would drop the next three in a row, but they would not die. Game 5 saw the team surrender three third-period goals to blow a 3-0 lead only to storm back for a 6-3 win. A 4-1 win in Game 6 in Vancouver forced a Game 7 back at MSG. With a raucous crowd cheering them on, the Rangers headed into the first intermission up 2-0 on goals from Brian Leetch and Adam Graves.
Given an early power-play to maybe be able to kill off the game, the Rangers were thrown back on their heels by Canucks captain Trevor Linden’s short-handed marker to make it 2-1. Messier quickly got the two-goal lead back before Linden bagged another. The Canucks threw everything they had at the Rangers in the third period, but they just wouldn’t crack and the Stanley Cup returned to Broadway for the first time since 1940.
This will not be the only soul-crushing Vancouver Canucks loss on this list…
Martin Gelinas Flames Nikolai Khabibulin Lightning 2004 Calgary Flames
The Calgary Flames returned to the playoffs for the first time in eight years in 2004 and were full value for advancing to their first Stanley Cup Final since they won their lone Cup in 1989. To get to the end, the Flames took down the Western Conference’s top three seeds. The sixth-seeded Flames opened their playoffs with a seven-game series victory over the Canucks. After the Canucks forced Game 7 with a triple-OT win thanks to Brendan Morrison, the Flames won the series 90 seconds into an extra frame in the deciding game on a goal from Martin Gelinas. They would go on to defeat the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings in six games, including two OT victories, in the second round and advanced to the Cup with a six-game series win over the San Jose Sharks.
Their opponent in the final was the Tampa Bay Lightning, making their first trip to the championship series. The Eastern Conference’s top team, John Tortorella’s Bolts went 8-1 in their first two series, a five-game win over the New York Islanders followed by a sweep of the Habs. They advanced to the final with a seven-game series win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Frederik Modin’s Game 7 winner.
The story of the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals is what happened – or didn’t happen – in Game 6. After splitting the first four games, the Flames grabbed the edge in Game 5 with an OT win on a goal by Oleg Saprykin. Looking to win their first title in 15 years and second overall, the Flames and Lightning were tied 2-2 in the third period. With a little over seven minutes to play in the final frame, Saprykin carried the puck into the Tampa zone on the tail end of a Flames power-play. He threw the puck to the front of the net for the oncoming Gelinas, who appeared to force a fine save out of Nikolai Khabibulin. The play continued and was whistled dead several seconds later. It was at this point that replays of the Gelinas chance were finally shown on the television broadcast.
Upon replay, Saprykin’s initial pass was kicked out by Khabibulin, but right onto the skate of Gelinas. The puck was redirected at the net and stopped by Khabibulin’s right pad, but it appeared as if it might have crossed the goal line before being stopped. A quick review ruled that the video was inconclusive and no goal was given. Because everything happened so quickly, there was no protest from the Flames. The game would go be settled in double overtime by Lightning forward Martin St. Louis to force a Game 7.
In Game 7, Ruslan Fedotenko opened the scoring on a power-play late in the first period before making it 2-0 for the Lightning late in the second period. Midway through the third, the Flames pulled within one on a power-play goal from Craig Conroy. As the clock ticked down, the Flames kept pouring it on, desperately seeking an equalizer. With a little over a minute remaining, Andrew Ference took a boarding penalty for hammering St. Louis into the boards. Flames captain Jarome Iginla was apoplectic and remonstrated with referee Kerry Fraser, but the penalty effectively killed off any chances of a comeback even with Bolts captain Dave Andreychuk going off for tripping with 23 seconds remaining. The Lighting would hold on for the 2-1 win and their first championship.
Bret Hedican Cam Ward Hurricanes Fernando Pisani Oilers 2006 Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers made it two straight Stanley Cup Finals with a Canadian team in them in 2006. Of course, it wasn’t in two straight years. There was no 2005 Stanley Cup with the entire NHL season wiped out by a lockout.
The Oilers headed into the playoffs as the West’s eighth and lowest seed. They stunned the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Red Wings in the first round in six games. In their Game 6 victory, Ales Hemsky scored the tying goal with four minutes left before scoring the winner with 66 seconds remaining to claim a 4-3 win. In the second round, the Oilers took on the Sharks in the postseason for the first time ever and after falling behind 2-0 to open the series, the Oilers stormed back to take the next four. In the Western Conference Final, the Oilers would have their shortest series of the postseason, eliminating the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in five games. In beating the Mighty Ducks, the Oilers became the first No. 8 seed to reach the final under that playoff format.
Taking on the Oilers would be the Carolina Hurricanes, back in the Stanley Cup for the second time in five years. The second seed in the East, the Canes eliminated the Habs in six games before dispatching the Devils in five. In the Eastern Conference Final, the Hurricanes came up against the Buffalo Sabres with the Canes emerging in seven games for a chance to avenge their 2002 Stanley Cup defeat.
Game 1 was particularly dispiriting for the Oilers considering how brightly it started. After Fernando Pisani had given the Oil a 1-0 lead in the first, the Oilers made it 2-0 on Chris Pronger’s penalty shot – the first-ever in a Stanley Cup Final – before Ethan Moreau made it 3-0 late in the period. But before the end of the period, Hurricanes captain Rod Brind’Amour pulled one back. Diminutive winger Ray Whitney scored twice to open the third to make it 3-3 before the Canes grabbed their first lead through a Justin Williams short-handed marker. A Hemsky goal with the man-advantage evened things at 4-4 with overtime appearing likely.
But disaster struck late for Edmonton. Goaltender Dwayne Roloson, who had been solid throughout the playoffs, was forced out of the game with a knee injury and replaced by Ty Conklin in the closing minutes. Then with just over 30 seconds remaining, rearguard Mike Commodore dumped the puck into the Edmonton zone and behind the net. Conklin came out of his crease to play the puck and attempted a backhand pass to defenceman Jason Smith. Conklin misjudged how close Smith was to him and his pass bounced off of his skate and right to Brind’Amour to tuck it into an empty net and win the game, 5-4.
Turning to Jussi Markkanen in net in Roloson’s absence, the Oilers would find themselves headed into Game 5 down 3-1 in the series. With the game tied 3-3 after regulation, the Oilers appeared to be dead men walking in OT. Just three minutes into the extra frame, Steve Staios was penalized for tripping Mark Recchi, giving the Canes the chance to win the Cup on the man-advantage. But it was the Oilers who would score shorthanded. Coming out of his own zone, Cory Stillman’s pass was a little on the leisurely side and picked off by Pisani. In alone on Cam Ward, the Edmonton native wristed it over his glove hand to win the game 4-3 and force a Game 6.
The Oilers would shellac the Canes 4-0 in Game 6 back at home to force the deciding Game 7 in Raleigh. After falling behind 2-0 on goals from Aaron Ward and Frank Kaberle, the Oilers would get one back in the opening minute of the third period through Pisani. Try as they might, that would be as close as they would come. Williams would ice a 3-1 win with an empty netter to keep Canada’s drought going.
Teemu Selanne Ducks Ray Emery Senators 2007 Ottawa Senators
By the time 2007 rolled around, the Senators had become a consistently good team that just couldn't seem to get over the hump.
On two different occasions, the team finished atop the Northeast Division, in 1999 and 2001, only to get swept in the first round by the Sabres and Leafs, respectively. The team's playoff history with the Leafs was well-documented. There had been four Battles of Ontario in the postseason during the 2000s and the Leafs came away the victors each time.
The 2007 Sens were in the playoffs for a 10th postseason in a row after a 48-win season to finish as runners-up to the Presidents' Trophy-winning Sabres in the Northeast. The team was led by their vaunted first line of Jason Spezza in between captain Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley. The trio combined for 103 goals and 166 assists. Spezza, Alfredsson and Heatley were dubbed the "Pizza Line" thanks to a promotion that saw fans win a free pizza slice whenever the Sens scored six or more goals in a game. When that happened, it was normally on account of those three.
The Sens opened their playoffs as the No. 4 seed and took on the Pittsburgh Penguins, who finished the season level on points with 105. Ottawa set the tone for the series in Game 1. Six different scorers saw Pens goalie Marc-Andre Fleury chased early in the third period in a 6-3 Sens win. After the Pens evened the series in Game 2, Ottawa reeled off three straight victories to move on.
The second round played out just as the first did. The Senators posted a Game 1 victory over the Devils before dropping the second game to tie up the series. From there, it was three straight Sens wins with Alfredsson bagging the Game 5 winner in a 3-2 win.
The Sabres would be the team standing in the Sens' way of a trip to the Stanley Cup. While Ottawa's futility against the Leafs in the postseason was well-known, their record against the Sabres wasn't much better. Prior to 2007, the Senators had lost all three previous meeting in the playoffs with Buffalo. Things were about to change, though. The Sens took a 3-0 lead in the series, including an overtime win in Game 2 on a Joe Corvo goal, before Buffalo stayed alive with a 3-2 win in Game 4. The Sens would once again close out a series in five games, this time in OT, with Alfredsson once again claiming the winner in another 3-2 victory.
The Western Conference representative in the Stanley Cup would not be the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Ahead of the 2006-2007 season, the team rebranded as the Anaheim Ducks. Led by a stout blueline anchored by future Hall of Famers in Pronger and Scott Niedermayer, the Ducks reached their second final in five seasons in one more game than the Sens took. After eliminating the Minnesota Wild in five games to open the postseason, the Ducks dumped the Canucks in five games before advancing to the Cup with a six-game series win over the top-seeded Red Wings.
Game 1 of the final couldn't have started better for the Sens. Just over 90 seconds into the first period, Ottawa had the lead on a power-play goal from Mike Fisher. Andy McDonald would tie it midway through the frame, but Wade Redden would regain the lead early in the second on the man-advantage again. After Ryan Getzlaf once again evened matters early in the third, the Ducks would claim a 3-2 win with a late marker from Travis Moen.
The second game of the series saw a goaltending duel between 2003 Conn Smythe winner Jean-Sebastien Giguere and the Sens' Ray Emery. It was Emery who would blink first when Samuel Pahlsson broke the deadlock with a little over five minutes remaining in the third period to give the Ducks a 1-0 victory and a 2-0 series lead. Giguere made 16 saves for the shutout, while Emery, who tragically drowned in 2018 at the age of 35, stopped 30 in the loss.
The Sens would pick up their lone win of the series in Game 3, but the bigger story coming out of it was what the Sens lost. Ottawa won the game by a score of 5-3 with Dean McAmmond's goal with under 90 seconds remaining in the second period proving to be the winner. Early in the third, McAmmond would be on the receiving end of a Pronger elbow. The big defenceman wasn't penalized on the play, but he would receive a one-game suspension for the blow. McAmmond would not return to the series.
After the Ducks eked out a one-goal win in Game 4 to return home with the opportunity to clinch the Cup on home ice, they wouldn't let it slip through their fingers. The Ducks opened a 2-0 lead in the first on goals from McDonald and Rob Niedermayer. The Sens would get one back midway through the second from Alfredsson, but Moen would restore the two-goal lead under four minutes later. Only 90 seconds later, Alfredsson would strike shorthanded to again pull within a goal, but the Ducks snuffed out the momentum with a goal 50 seconds after that on the power-play through Francois Beuachemin. The Ducks would go on to win their first Stanley Cup with a 6-2 win.
The loss marked a third straight playoffs in which a Canadian team fell in the final.
Brad Marchand Bruins 2011 Vancouver Canucks
You were warned earlier about more Canucks heartbreak…
The 2011 Canucks might have been one of the better teams to have never won a Stanley Cup. Alain Vigneault’s team won the Presidents’ Trophy with 117 points. The goaltending combo of Roberto Luongo and Cory Schneider won the Jennings Trophy. Ryan Kesler was the Selke winner as the league’s top defensive forward. Daniel Sedin’s 104 points won him the Art Ross and he was also named the Ted Lindsay Award winner. Mike Gillis was honoured as the General Manager of the Year.
Their playoffs got off to a frightening start. After going up 3-0 in the series against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Canucks were blown out in Games 4 and 5 before a Ben Smith overtime goal in Game 6 forced a Game 7. The deciding game also went to OT after a late Jonathan Toews goal, but Alexandre Burrows spared Vancouver’s blushes with his second goal of the game to win the contest, 2-1, and the series. The Canucks followed that up with a tight six-game series win over the Nashville Predators before a more comfortable victory over the Sharks in five games.
The Eastern Conference representative was the Boston Bruins, appearing in their first Stanley Cup since 1990. Like the Canucks, the Bruins advanced out of the first round with an overtime win in Game 7, over the Habs, on a goal from Nathan Horton. They followed that up with a sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers in which they scored 20 goals in the series before another seven-game nail-biter over the Lightning.
The Canucks opened the Stanley Cup final with a 1-0 win thanks to Raffi Torres’s goal with 19 seconds remaining in the third period in a game in which Luongo outdueled fellow Vezina finalist (and eventual winner) Tim Thomas. In Game 2, it was uber-pest Burrows who played the hero again. Just 11 seconds into OT, Burrows scored his second of the game and ninth of the playoffs to win it 3-2 and give the Canucks a 2-0 series lead.
But the free-scoring Bruins that ran over the Flyers in the second round returned for the next two games. Back in Boston, the Bruins caved in the Canucks in Game 3 with an 8-1 win in an ill-tempered game that saw 27 penalties called. They followed that up with a 4-0 shutout in Game 4 to even the series. That was a much tamer affair with only 21 penalties.
Game 5 was played on a knife’s edge with the lone goal coming in the third period from Maxim Lapierre to give Luongo his second 1-0 shutout of the series. Returning to Boston with a chance to wrap up their first Stanley Cup, the Canucks came out just as flat as they did in the Game 3 disaster. By the 10-minute mark of the first period, the Bruins led Game 6 by a score of 4-0 and went on to claim a 5-2 victory.
In Game 7, it became clear that it wasn’t going to be the Canucks’ year and this Bruins team had simply worn them down. Brad Marchand scored on an empty net to ice a 4-0 victory and win Boston’s first Stanley Cup since 1972. The Canucks’ meltdown over the last two games was greeted in Vancouver with what is now the lasting image of that Stanley Cup Finals – an evening of rioting in the downtown that saw over 100 arrests made and multiple injuries incurred.
Canadiens Lightning 2021 Montreal Canadiens
The 2020-2021 NHL season was not an ordinary one. At the height of the pandemic, games were played in empty arenas in many places and because of travel restrictions, makeshift divisions were created, including a seven-team, all-Canadian division. The four top teams in each division made the playoffs with the all-Canadian North Division and West Division on one side of the bracket and the East and Central Divisions on the other.
The Canadiens, who fired head coach Claude Julien midseason with assistant Dominique Ducharme taking over, were the final team in the North to claim a playoff spot to set up a first-round date with their forever rival Leafs. It was the teams’ first postseason meeting since 1979. After falling behind 3-1 in the series, the Habs forced a Game 7 on the back of OT wins in Games 5 and 6 largely due to horrible Leafs’ defensive gaffes to set up the winning goals. In Game 7, Carey Price was the story, stopping 30 of the 31 shots he faced in a 3-1 victory to add yet another chapter to Toronto’s book of postseason misery.
The Habs followed up an emotional comeback over the Leafs with a sweep of the Winnipeg Jets. Tyler Toffoli scored the series-winning goal early on in overtime of Game 4. They advanced to their record 35th Stanley Cup Finals with a six-game series victory over the Vegas Golden Knights.
Standing on the other side of the ice in the Stanley Cup Final would be the Habs’ regular division rivals, the Lightning. The defending champions, the Bolts reached their second-straight championship with series wins over the Florida Panthers and Hurricanes in six and five games, respectively. In the conference final, the Bolts emerged from a seven-game battle with the New York Islanders. Tampa won Game 7 by a score of 1-0 on a second-period short-handed goal by Yanni Gourde.
While a surprise Stanley Cup appearance certainly buoyed the spirits of Habs faithful, the final wasn’t a particularly exciting or close one. The Lightning took the first three games of the series by a combined score of 14-5. The Habs’ lone victory came in Game 4 to stave off the sweep and it came in overtime. Josh Anderson notched his second goal of the game and his fifth of the postseason under four minutes into the extra period to give the Canadiens a 3-2 victory.
In Game 6, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves and Ross Colton scored the game’s only goal in a 1-0 shutout as the Lightning became the first repeat champions since the 2016 and 2017 Penguins. The win also gave Lightning forward Patrick Maroon a third-straight Cup win, becoming the first player to do so since 1983.