Name your top 5 single-season teams that didn't win a Cup, in the last 20 years

[Big Phil]

Why 20 years? It is simple. Everyone is going to have the 1996 Red Wings on here, that's a given. Plus the 1993 Pens, 1986 Oilers, 1971 Bruins, etc. We all know this, but let's make it more recent and a little harder to think about.

What teams starting in 1997 are the best to never win a Cup. The top 5.

#1 1997 Avalanche - Led the NHL in points and were defending Cup champs, all with Sakic and Forsberg missing 20% of the season. But they had everything. Two star centres down the middle, a HHOF goalie, Ozolinsh on defense and a very good defensive corps behind him of stay at home types. Very capable wingers: Kamensky, Claude Lemieux, Young, Deadmarsh, etc. Won their division by 22 points and ultimately lost to the eventual champs.

#2 2010 Capitals - Ovechkin in perhaps his greatest season, Mike Green in a Norris caliber year and a team that just powered it's way offensively all year. 121 points as well. Backstrom, Semin, not to mention good depth up front. It almost seemed as if it didn't matter what Theodore or Varlamov did in net. This team scored 318 goals, the most since the 1996 Penguins. It's funny, because even though Montreal beat them by the skin of their teeth, it still doesn't feel like they even lost to them that year. How do you lose a series when in the last two games you outshot your opponent 54-21 and 41-14?

#3 2011 Canucks - This really looked like their year. Luongo at the peak of his powers, the Sedins too. Kesler winning the Selke. They just had it rolling too. 117 points, murdered their division that year. Won 6 in a row twice, won 7 once, won 8 once. Maybe a puck rushing defenseman would have helped, but then again that's not why Boston beat them.

#4 2003 Senators - This is strange, but at the time you'd have taken Redden over Chara. Either way, a good defensive corps, good chemistry with Yashin long gone and they looked to finally shed their choker label. Led the NHL in points too. I honestly have to wonder if the Leafs would have beaten this dialed in 2003 version even though they did 4 times in 5 years.

#5 2000 Blues - Led the NHL in points with 114. The Blues were always a good team, but they exploded this year and just seemed poised to become a western superpower. Pronger in his Hart year on defense with MacInnis. Turgeon down the middle perhaps ready to shed his "soft" label. Demitra on the wing, and in general some balanced scoring. The wild card was Roman Turek coming out of nowhere that year in net. They looked legit. The Hockey News picked them to win it at the beginning of the playoffs.

Click to read more...

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

2008-09 Bruins have to up there.

53-19-10 (116 points)

missed the President's Trophy by 1 point to SJ due to SJ having 1 more OTL. Bruins had 2 more ROW and a better point% of .659 vs .640

1st in GA (196)
2nd in GF (274)

Thomas's 1st Vezina
Chara's Norris year

and they sh*t the bed in round 2 against Carolina

 

[Epsilon]

The 2005-06 Senators and Red Wings are both up there. The Sens lost Hasek to injury and that obviously derailed their status as maybe the top contender, but they still had a strong team and made quick work of Tampa in the playoffs. They lost 4-1 to Buffalo but it's worth noting that all 5 games were 1-goal and 3 of Buffalo's wins went to overtime. If they get through that series and play Carolina, who knows. The Red Wings were brutally efficient all season long, then went into the 1st round of the playoffs flat (not the first time that happened). Even so, it looked like they were going to send the series back to Detroit for game 7 before Legace crapped the bed towards the end of game 6. If they escape that first round, perhaps they hit their groove.

 

[Sentinel]

Red Wings in 99 and 03 have to qualify. Both defending champions. Both roll through the regular season. 99 team acquires Chelios, Clark, and Ranford as an insurance. They have Avs on the ropes. Then Osgood is injured, and they suffer complete mental collapse.

In 03 they acquire Joseph and IIRC Schneider. Fedorov has (his last) great season, thoroughly outplaying the rest of his HOF teammates. Some rookie named Zetterberg joins the Two Kids and a Goat line. Then Giguerre happens. Sad.

 

[Jim MacDonald]

I cant take credit as this being my original thought...but I've heard a lot of people lambaste the 2009 Sharks as a team that severely underachieved.

 

[IslesFan2017]

This is a really fascinating topic for me. A lot of the Red Wings teams from the early millennium up to about 2009 could qualify. Some of the teams listed, while they earned a lot of regular season points, lost early in the playoffs (2000 Blues, 2010 Capitals), while others made it pretty far and lost in Game 7s to the eventual Stanley Cup champions (2011 Canucks, 2003 Senators, 2009 Red Wings). So it depends on what you value previous Stanley Cup championships, regular season points, or historically elite players on the team. Here is my list:
#1: 2011 Canucks-Like Big Phil said, they gained 117 points and won the President's Trophy, had the Sedin brothers at their peaks and got to Game 7 against the Bruins despite their injuries.
#2 2009 Red Wings-Possibly interchangeable with the 2011 Canucks because they won the Cup the year before and had Zetterberg and Datsyuk leading a very strong forward core with Lidstrom and Rafalski leading the defense.
#3 2006 Senators-I was torn on either the 2003 Senators or this team, but I chose them because like Epsilon said, I think they had the potential to win it all with a healthy Hasek and the line of Spezza, Heatley and Alfredsson in their primes.
#4 2007 Sabres-Similar to the Senators, I could have picked either this edition of the Sabres or the 2006 Sabres, but I think this was their best chance to win the Cup with Drury and Briere on the team before they left as free agents in the summer. The Sabres had gotten a taste of getting deep into the playoffs the previous spring and this probably meant they were more experienced and better prepared for the playoffs but lost to the Senators in the Conference Finals.
#5 2017 Capitals-Another unfortunate letdown by the Capitals and they lost to the Penguins in the second round but I think they lost to the best Penguins team to win the Cup in the Crosby era so I would put them here ahead of the 2010 or 2016 Capitals.

Honorable Mentions: 2006 Red Wings, 2009 Bruins, 2013 Penguins, 2009 Sharks, 2014 Blackhawks.

 

[GMR]

2001 Devils and 2000 Stars didn't make anyone's list?

 

[blood gin]

You just knew Turek was going to let them down in 2000 and he did. They also had some age on the blue line. Ellett (35) Macinnis (36) Bergevin (34) Finley (32) nor were they particularly quick back there. They seemed like a very vulnerable top dog.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

#3 2011 Canucks - This really looked like their year. Luongo at the peak of his powers, the Sedins too. Kesler winning the Selke. They just had it rolling too. 117 points, murdered their division that year. Won 6 in a row twice, won 7 once, won 8 once. Maybe a puck rushing defenseman would have helped, but then again that's not why Boston beat them.

they had him, christian ehrhoff. he helped the sedins to an art ross each in his two years here. his ability to beat the forecheck by skating the puck into the neutral zone then outletting before opposing defenses had a chance to set was vital to this team. he was so efficient; i would compare him, offensively only of course, to 2003 niedermayer. sadly, ehrhoff injured his shoulder mid-way through the SJ series and played the entire finals with his shoulder frozen.

after he left, vigneault tried to get the sedins back that head start by giving them goofy zone starts.

#1: 2011 Canucks-Like Big Phil said, they gained 117 points and won the President's Trophy, had the Sedin brothers at their peaks and got to Game 7 against the Bruins despite their injuries.

it still kills me. almost everything that could go right went right, until almost everything that could go wrong went wrong.

underrated stat that every canucks fan knows but i don't know that other people remember: going into the last week of the season, those canucks were 1st in goals, 1st in goals against, 1st in PP%, and 1st in PK%. then in that last week they let in six PP goals in four games, all against non-playoff teams, after allowing only 40 in the other 78 games. that dropped them to third in PK%, though they still led the league in the other three categories.

i mean, what a team. they came out of the trade deadline with this lineup--

sedin sedin burrows
raymond kesler samuelsson
torres manny i.i. malhotra hansen
glass lapierre higgins

and opened the playoffs with this blueline--

hamhuis bieksa
edler ehrhoff
ballard salo

and in goal of course they had luongo and schneider.

kesler won the selke and there was at least one, possibly two, forwards on that team who had better years than him defensively.

they had the best penalty killing duo i've ever seen (burrows and kesler), and followed it up with malhotra and hansen.

they had SIX top four defensemen, all making north of $3 million and due to laurence gilman's amazing cap manoeuvring managed to keep them from all being in the lineup at the same time until the first game of the playoffs ($22.3 million total on a $59.4 million salary cap on a team that already had three MVPs and a perennial selke nominee to pay).

two guys in the top 5 in goals, the #1 and #3 assists leaders, the art ross winner plus the previous year's winner henrik sedin in 4th, players +1, +3, and +4 away from the league lead in +/-, league leader in wins, #2 and 4 in GAA, #3 and 4 in SV%. three guys who had finished top two in hart voting, eight guys who had scored 25 goals in a season before.

on a heartwarming note, on the third last game of the season, luongo pulled himself in the dying seconds to get schneider in the game so he could qualify for a share of the jennings trophy (luongo and schneider were scheduled to split the last two games, so schneider needed one more game to meet the 25 game threshold).

they ended the season with this--

sedin sedin burrows
tambellini kesler higgins
torres lapierre hansen
glass manny i. malhotra oreskovich

edler ehrhoff
salo bieksa
alberts tanev*

* tanev had 33 games of NHL experience wouldn't be an everyday lineup player until two years later

this was my favourite game of that season, and a breakthrough game for this group's realization that they were the cream of the league. watch how torres, malhotra, and hansen on the forecheck makes nik lidstrom hear footsteps.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

2001 Devils and 2000 Stars didn't make anyone's list?

Good calls. A lot of teams listed here were great in the regular season and choked in the first or second round of the playoffs. 2001 Devils and 2000 Stars each won their division in the regular season, won the Conference in the playoffs, each was the defending champion, and each lost a close finals series to another great team.

I don't think a lot of people realize the 2000-01 Devils were the highest scoring team of the entire dead puck era. 295 goals to 2nd place Pittsburgh's 281. Only team between 1995-96 (3 teams) and 2005-06 (2 teams) to break 290 goals in the regular season.

With 295 goals for (1st by a good margin) and 195 goals against (tied for 4th), the 2000-01 Devils easily had the best goal differential in the NHL, won the Eastern Conference, and were behind only Colorado for the President's Trophy. (Detroit was tied with NJ in regular season points).

 

[GreatGonzo]

2001 New Jersey Devils were an amazing team. That series was a great one.
2003 Red Wings were really great as well, same with the 2004 team.
2009 and 2014 Bruins were very strong.

 

[blood gin]

The 2010 Capitals were an instance where you just can't pin on an outright choke. It was horrible luck and otherworldly goaltending by Halak. At the very end there the Habs were simply collapsing in their own end around Halak like there were 6 goalies on the ice

 

[Brodeur]

I don't think a lot of people realize the 2000-01 Devils were the highest scoring team of the entire dead puck era. 295 goals to 2nd place Pittsburgh's 281. Only team between 1995-96 (3 teams) and 2005-06 (2 teams) to break 290 goals in the regular season.

With 295 goals for (1st by a good margin) and 195 goals against (tied for 4th), the 2000-01 Devils easily had the best goal differential in the NHL, won the Eastern Conference, and were behind only Colorado for the President's Trophy. (Detroit was tied with NJ in regular season points).

And they did that with Jason Arnott and Scott Niedermayer holding out until just before Thanksgiving. The Devils stumbled out to an 8-8-3 start without those two. After they returned, the Devils went 40-11-9-3 (.730 clip / 120 point pace over a full season).

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The 2010 Capitals were an instance where you just can't pin on an outright choke. It was horrible luck and otherworldly goaltending by Halak. At the very end there the Habs were simply collapsing in their own end around Halak like there were 6 goalies on the ice

Maybe not that particular year, but the Capitals team defense and goaltending continually let them down in the playoffs during the Bruce Boudreau era, so I don't know if they were a really great team or a really great regular season team.

 

[BenchBrawl]

It would have been interesting to see what the Caps could have done if they weren't horrifyingly stole by Halak.Ovechkin was still a great playoff performer.God I hated that Montreal team when they had Jacques Martin, Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta, and I'm a Montreal fan.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I know their regular season standing wasn't that great, but 2013-2014 Chicago deserves some love.All their core players were productive, five players getting 60+ pts.They went to the Conference Finals and lost to a great LA squad.They won the Stanley Cup with pretty much the same team the year before and the year after.

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

2008 pens - they went 12 - 2 in the playoffs before losing to the wings, a team many consider to be the best post lockout team, they were just babies and beginning their journey to greatness but they would beat most recent champs

2009 wings - on paper better than the previous champs, had some injuries and not their fault they had to play crosby and malkin in god mode,

2013 bruins - better than the 2011 champs, swept the pens (thanks bylsma) and gave a great chicago team all they could handle, won the presidents trophy next season

2001 devils - better than their 3 cup teams, played an amazing avs team

2002 avs - lost to a bought all star team, but they were loaded

2014 hawks - just as good as any of their cup teams, bad puck luck

2016 and 2017 capitals - normally i think to qualify as "amazing" a team should at least make the conference finals, not their fault the league changed up the playoff pairings forcing them to face a potential dynasty in the 2nd round, they would've beaten anybody else in the league

 

[a79krgm]

I wanted to say the 1993 Penguins, but I just realized it was more than 20 years ago.

2003 Colorado Avs
Team finished with 105 points. Hejduk led the league in goals while Forsberg led in points. Sakic was still strong despite injuries early in the season. They had a HOF goaltender in Roy. What could go wrong? 1ST ROUND EXIT TO MINNESOTA IN 7 GAMES

 

[Brodeur]

2001 devils - better than their 3 cup teams, played an amazing avs team

The 2000-01 Devils had the better regular season, but the 2000 Cup team was better on paper. Essentially the same team, but with Claude Lemieux and Vladimir Malakhov in place of Turner Stevenson/Bob Corkum and Sean O'Donnell. Malakhov was a talented enigma, but he had a great playoff in 2000 whereas O'Donnell had a solid career but was just the wrong type of D to pair with Colin White.

For a contender, the 1999-00 Devils uncharacteristically made a lot of trades during the season. Brian Rolston, Vadim Sharifijanov, Brendan Morrison, Denis Pederson, Sheldon Souray, and Lyle Odelein were all shipped out during the season. The 2000-01 squad had a fairly steady lineup minus the Arnott/Niedermayer holdouts. But essentially, the 2000-01 team was an extension of the 2000 Cup team.

 

[GMR]

2008 pens - they went 12 - 2 in the playoffs before losing to the wings, a team many consider to be the best post lockout team, they were just babies and beginning their journey to greatness but they would beat most recent champs

2009 wings - on paper better than the previous champs, had some injuries and not their fault they had to play crosby and malkin in god mode,

2013 bruins - better than the 2011 champs, swept the pens (thanks bylsma) and gave a great chicago team all they could handle, won the presidents trophy next season

2001 devils - better than their 3 cup teams, played an amazing avs team

2002 avs - lost to a bought all star team, but they were loaded

2014 hawks - just as good as any of their cup teams, bad puck luck

2016 and 2017 capitals - normally i think to qualify as "amazing" a team should at least make the conference finals, not their fault the league changed up the playoff pairings forcing them to face a potential dynasty in the 2nd round, they would've beaten anybody else in the league

I know you like the Pens, but that 2008 team would lose in a playoff series to every other team on your own list.

 

[blood gin]

It would have been interesting to see what the Caps could have done if they weren't horrifyingly stole by Halak.Ovechkin was still a great playoff performer.God I hated that Montreal team when they had Jacques Martin, Mike Cammalleri, Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta, and I'm a Montreal fan.

Plekanec too, so underrated

 

[GMR]

I cant take credit as this being my original thought...but I've heard a lot of people lambaste the 2009 Sharks as a team that severely underachieved.

It's hard to even pick one Sharks team that choked. That particular team lost in the first round, albeit to an underrated Ducks team. The Sharks had a decade of underachieving. They're like the Capitals, except they got less media attention from playing on the West coast.

 

[GordieHowsUrBreath]

I know you like the Pens, but that 2008 team would lose in a playoff series to every other team on your own list.

based on what? they steam rolled everybody except the wings who like i mentioned is a popular choice for best team post lockout

they won the cup the next season, so i think it's safe to say they were more than legit but hey i know it's cool around here to downgrade anything crosby and company have done

 

[Bear of Bad News]

hey i know it's cool around here to downgrade anything crosby and company have done

But hey, I know that you think ad hominem attacks are cool, too. STOP DOING IT. The History sub-forum doesn't deserve that crap.

 

[GMR]

based on what? they steam rolled everybody except the wings who like i mentioned is a popular choice for best team post lockout

they won the cup the next season, so i think it's safe to say they were more than legit but hey i know it's cool around here to downgrade anything crosby and company have done

The other teams on your list were proven winners and were better rounded teams. That Pens team wasn't and was still learning how to win.