Canada's 32-year Stanley Cup drought is now embarrassing. Can the Oilers end it?
If you took a DeLorean back to June 9, 1993, and tried to explain to those gathered at the Montreal Forum what was taking place in the NHL today, in 2025, no one would believe you.
That day, the Montreal Canadiens wiped the floor with an overmatched Wayne Gretzky-led Los Angeles Kings team in Game 5. The Habs hoisted their record 24th Stanley Cup, 18 of which they had won over the previous 40 years, and planned their usual parade down Rue Sainte-Catherine.
Advertisement
Yes, there was a time when Canadian teams not only won the Stanley Cup, but one team alone won it nearly 45 percent of the time.
As a child of the '90s, I remember those days well. Back then we assumed Canada's clubs would just keep winning and having Cup parades because they always did, with the occasional intrusion from the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers or Pittsburgh Penguins. Montreal was always the standard-bearer, but if you add in the Toronto Maple Leafs' dominance of the 1960s, the Edmonton Oilers' run in the 1980s and a lone championship for the Calgary Flames in 1989, the Cup practically lived in Canada between 1953 and 1993, going to an NHL team from this country 28 times in 41 seasons.
And then: nothing.
There are some incredible stats from Canada's Cup drought. Consider that when the Stanley Cup Final opens Wednesday in Edmonton, it will be just the second time in the past 32 years that a Canadian NHL team has had home-ice advantage in the final. (The other was the Vancouver Canucks in 2011, a series that ended about as horribly as possible for what was a deep, 117-point team.)
There have been many close calls, for sure. Five Canadian teams have lost in Game 7 of the Cup final over those 32 years, including the Canucks in 1994 and 2011, the Flames in 2004, and Oilers in 2006 and 2024 — last year to the same Florida Panthers team they face this time around.
Consider, too, that the Canadian franchise with the most playoff wins since 1993 is actually the woebegone Leafs, a franchise that hasn't made a Cup final since 1967. Their 89 postseason victories over that span are tied for 14th in the NHL with the Anaheim Ducks. And it translates to just 2.78 wins per season, less than one series victory. (The Detroit Red Wings lead the way with 160 playoff wins in that span, more than double what most of the seven Canadian teams have managed.)
Taken together, it's a whole lot of pain for a country that loves hockey so much that it's become ingrained in its identity as a national sport.
The reasons for Canada's weird — and, at this point, embarrassing — Cup drought are myriad.
Winnipeg, for one, has a good excuse, given its Jets were relocated out of the league for 14 of those 31 seasons and then gifted an awful Atlanta Thrashers roster in 2011 as compensation. They've since built a strong franchise on the ice, winning the Presidents' Trophy this year as the NHL's top team despite playing in one of the smallest markets in the Big Four sports.
Advertisement
Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and even Vancouver have struggled through periods of economic challenges, especially in the 1990s and early 2000s when relocations were still in vogue — Minnesota, Quebec and Hartford all lost teams in a span of four years in addition to Winnipeg — and the Canadian dollar hit an all-time low of less than 62 cents versus the American dollar.
These days, it's become commonplace in this country to blame the Sun Belt teams for the drought, pointing to players wanting to play in warm-weather climates with more favorable tax situations. Though that's become more of a factor over the past decade, what's also clear is that a lot of the Canadian franchises' misery has been self-inflicted the last three decades.
There have been meddling owners who overruled their front offices and/or denied the pursuit of necessary rebuilds. There have also been poor hires in management, with some of the NHL's weakest general managers of the past 30 years putting in long tenures in Canadian cities.
Beyond struggles to woo free agents, for some of the reasons listed above, the Canadian teams haven't been great at drafting or pro scouting, generally speaking. There have been moments of success and examples of strong teams, but they've rarely been powerhouses. Of the NHL's 50 best regular seasons since 1993, for example, just seven of those teams were based in Canada. Only those ill-fated 2010-11 Canucks make the top 25.
Which brings us to this year's Oilers, a team that has what is likely the best chance of any to finally end Canada's drought.
Not only was Edmonton one game away last season — and one goal away in Game 7 — but it also now has home-ice advantage and a stronger roster than a year ago. The Oilers boast two of the best playoff performers in league history, with captain Connor McDavid and alternate Leon Draisaitl, an elite defenseman in Evan Bouchard, and depth so impressive they've been sitting out established NHL players throughout the postseason.
Advertisement
There are weaknesses, too — with a question mark in goal probably the biggest one — but everyone is expecting this to be a coin-flip of a series, despite the fact the Panthers are such a strong club they are in their third consecutive final and have the makings of a salary-cap-era dynasty.
Do the Oilers offer a blueprint for the other Canadian teams, though? Not exactly, not given the tortured road they took, bottoming out longer and harder than any of them.
Between 1993 and when they drafted McDavid first in 2015, Edmonton had the NHL's fourth-worst record. That includes the first decade of the cap era when they were dead last by a mile, picking first four times in six years between Taylor Hall (in 2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (2011), Nail Yakupov (2012) and McDavid.
If there's a lesson in the Oilers' success, it's in what came next. They convinced McDavid to sign long-term out of his entry-level deal, at a discount. They did the same with Draisaitl, too. Around those two massive pillars, through trial and error, they finally put competent management in place and found enough supporting pieces to get them to here, where they're one of the best teams in the league.
Along the way, Edmonton also built a world-class facility in Rogers Place in 2016 and became more of a free-agent destination, wooing key depth players like Zach Hyman, Corey Perry, Connor Brown and Adam Henrique, among others.
McDavid and Draisaitl were obviously an enormous part of their on-ice success and building a culture that drew players in, but the Oilers are still proof that it can be done in Canada. You can draft good players and get them to stay. And you can win a lot of games if you give them a hand.
We'll see whether it's enough to topple the juggernaut that is this Panthers team, starting with Game 1 at home. Not everyone will necessarily climb aboard the bandwagon up here in Canada, not when Edmonton is a key rival to the other teams out West, but it's fair to say there will be some extra support beyond the Albertan capital for this one.
For many Canadians, it just feels like it's time to finally win one again.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Chicago program to light up dark streets is gateway to energy efficiency
The 79th Street corridor is one of the busiest thoroughfares on Chicago's Southeast Side. But many of its adjacent side streets are poorly lit at night, posing hazards ranging from inconvenient to dangerous. For instance, obscured house numbers can confuse both delivery drivers and emergency responders. And higher levels of crime have been correlated with poorly lit streets, making it feel unsafe for children to play outdoors after sunset or for pedestrians to walk alone in the dark. 'For those people who are going to work in the winter at five o'clock in the morning and it's pitch black out there, yeah, they're scared. They're walking down the middle of the street,' said Sharon 'Sy' Lewis, founder and executive director of Meadows Eastside Community Resource Organization, commonly referred to by its acronym of MECRO. But block by block, things are changing, in no small part due to Light Up the Night, administered by MECRO in collaboration with the energy-efficiency program of Chicago utility ComEd. The initiative aims to solve the problem of dark streets by outfitting the front and back of homes with energy-efficient lights that automatically turn on at night and off during the day. Light Up the Night was launched in 2019 as a pilot program in the South Shore community of the city's South Side with an initial goal of providing Energy Star-certified LED light bulbs for up to 300 residences. The program had to pause during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, but eventually, Light Up the Night was able to achieve that goal and then some. Lewis said it has served more than 500 homes so far, and she is pursuing funding to expand. MECRO staff or volunteers install the bulbs into existing outlets at no charge to residents. Lewis said this proactive approach yields better results than just distributing packages of light bulbs and other energy-saving devices that may or may not get used. For Lewis, the installation process provides an opening to talk to residents about other energy-efficient measures, like weatherization or purchasing new appliances. The upgrades, often eligible for rebates to offset the cost, can dramatically reduce utility bills. This is particularly impactful in communities like those surrounding the 79th Street corridor, in which many residents spend a big portion of their income on energy bills, largely due to predominantly older and often poorly insulated housing stock. 'Light Up the Night is not just a gateway to safety, it's a gateway to energy savings. And it starts with the little things. And because we installed it, instead of sending them an 'energy box,' then we know that it's working. When you drive down that street, you know that it's working, you see that impact,' Lewis said. A minimum of 75% participation is required per block, and each homeowner or renter must provide consent before installation can begin, Lewis said. 'If the average block has 36 homes on it, if we get 15 on each side, at minimum, we have really created an impact for the block,' Lewis said. 'So now you have the whole community lighting up at once [at dusk], and then they all go off in the morning.' A legacy of segregation and disinvestment has left residents of predominantly Black communities like the Southeast Side with a strong distrust of outsiders. As a lifelong resident and visible activist, Lewis has an advantage when it comes to engaging with residents, but obtaining initial buy-in around South Shore was still a challenge. 'Getting people to sign up, that was a problem because we can't not have data on where we are leaving the lights. … [But] people didn't want to provide their information,' Lewis said. To get the program up and running, Lewis worked with neighborhood block clubs to overcome apprehension and to identify particular streets in the South Shore community that would benefit the most from the new lights. She also worked with other community organizations, especially those focused on violence prevention. It was easier to start up the program in Austin, a neighborhood on the city's West Side, where, also in 2019, Lewis collaborated with Steve Robinson, executive director of the Northwest Austin Council, with whom she had worked previously on a number of initiatives. Chicago police officers assigned to that community were also enthusiastic about the program, and helped Lewis identify blocks where adding lights would be especially impactful, she said. '[Robinson] invited me over there. It was a whole change. It was a sea change. It was amazing. [The police] were excited about it. They were looking forward to the change we were doing,' Lewis said. Wherever it has been implemented, this small-scale program has had an outsized positive impact, Lewis said. Additional lighting on front porches and entryways also enhances safety for visitors to the community, including service providers like mail carriers, delivery people, and rideshare drivers. Likewise, floodlights installed at the rear of a home or apartment building add to the ambient lighting in often dark alleyways, which results in fewer garage break-ins and instances of illegal dumping of garbage, Lewis said. MECRO does much more than install lights. The organization also helps guide new and existing small business owners, conducting educational seminars and offering technical assistance. And it provides residents with referrals for energy-efficiency improvements and other sustainability-related resources they might not otherwise know about. But Light Up the Night remains part of the organization's core mission. While illuminating areas that used to be dark is the program's first objective, once the new bulbs have replaced older, less-efficient lights, the lower utility bills can be eye-opening for residents. When people see those savings, 'they start thinking, 'Well, what if I get all energy-efficiency light bulbs? Hmm. Okay, now my bill has gone really down. What if I do the weatherization program? Now my bill is really down,'' Lewis said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
This Woman Is Showing The Effects Of The Tariff War In China, And Hooooo Boy You Are Not Ready For This
Here in the US, we're experiencing the effects of President Trump's tariff wars every single day as prices continue going up. If you're wondering how the tariffs are affecting people in other countries, Emily ( a Canadian living in China, recently shared a video explaining exactly how things have changed for her in the grocery store over there. Emily's video starts out, "Hello from China. So, I'm in a grocery store right now, and I wanted to show you how the American tariffs are affecting Chinese customers." @ / Via "So, I was gonna get some beef for dinner tonight, and I saw this," she says, holding up a package of beef. "What used to be here is American beef. But now, as you can see, it says Australian beef." @ / Via "And I did look around," she added. "I couldn't find one single pack of beef from America. So I guess China just stopped buying beef from America, and it went straight to Australia." @ / Via "The whole idea that China is hurting because of the American tariffs? Well, they're not, because they are not as dependent on the US. In fact, only 18% of Chinese imports come from America. And for stuff like beef and soy, they can just go somewhere else easily." @ / Via Trading Economics says that the number is even lower than Emily suggested, putting the percentage of China's imports that come from the US at around 7% in 2023. According to the USDA, the US exported $1.58 billion worth of beef to China in 2024. Reuters also notes that in 2022, "soybeans were the No. 1 U.S. product imported by China," but that "the U.S. has lost competitive advantage to Brazil." "So I guess I'm having Australian beef for dinner tonight instead of American beef," Emily continued. "And honestly, because of the food quality, I probably trust Australian beef better." "And this box of beef right here is 50 RMB, which is about $7 USD." "So to answer the question, China ain't hurting. And if anything, I think we're probably doing even better because now [we have] better beef that tastes better and at a better price." @ / Via "So, thank you, Trump, for that," she concluded. Unsurprisingly, commenters had a lot to say on the topic. "USA put sanctions on themselves," one said. "No country is hurting apart from the US," said another. "I don't see China going back to the USA for those products in the next 4 years. Sadly a lot of American farmers are big fans of Trump." The video even made its way over to Twitter (now known as X), where even more people shared their opinions. "So Trump trying to beef up American exports, actually lead to losing customers to export to," said one. "Our tariff tiff countries have other options. America isn't the only trade partner in the world. We're even less desirable now because we aren't trusted." "There's nothing the United States can offer that the rest of the world doesn't already have. Except for serial killers and deep-fried hot dogs." You can watch Emily's full video below, and follow her over on TikTok. What do you think? Were you surprised to learn how the tariffs are affecting people in other countries? Let us know in the comments.
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
Edmonton Oilers defeat Florida Panthers in overtime to take Game 1 of Stanley Cup Final
A Canadian team hasn't lifted the Stanley Cup in almost 32 years and now the Edmonton Oilers are one step closer to breaking that drought after defeating the Florida Panthers 4-3 in overtime to take Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday. Leon Draisaitl secured a feed from Connor McDavid and found the back of the net with just over 30 seconds left in the first extra period to send Oilers fans at Rogers Place and the Moss Pit outside the arena into an excited frenzy. Edmonton got off to a fast start with Draisaitl scoring 66 seconds into the game but the defending Cup champ Panthers did not let that keep them down. Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand each scored in a span of two minutes to give Florida the lead. The 28-year-old Bennett added his second goal of the game early in the second period as the Edmonton crowd, once bursting with excitement, was stunned into silence. Despite an Oilers goal just over a minute later, the Panthers found themselves in a familiar spot – holding a lead through the first two periods. Florida, appearing in its third consecutive Cup Final, was 31-0 when holding a lead at the end of the first or second period in the playoffs under head coach Paul Maurice. Edmonton had other plans of handing the 58-year-old Maurice something he hasn't experienced since trading the cold of Winnipeg for the sunny beaches of south Florida three years ago. Defenseman Mattias Ekholm, playing in only his second game back due to injury, tied it with 13:27 remaining in regulation off a perfect pass from McDavid which would eventually force overtime. Both teams traded scoring chances for most of the extra period, but Panthers winger Tomáš Nosek was called for delay of game after putting the puck over the glass with time winding down. With their two best players on the ice for the ensuing power play, McDavid and Draisaitl did what they do best to secure victory for the Oilers. After the game, Draisaitl – despite having a hard time describing the feeling of scoring the game-winner in a Stanley Cup final series – credited his teammates for setting up the scoring chance. 'You are obviously locked in. Especially on the power play, you're looking to finish it,' Draisaitl told reporters. 'Again, some incredible plays that made it pretty easy for me to put that home. It's a special feeling. It's great for right now but we got to look ahead and get read for Game 2.' McDavid, the three-time Hart Memorial Trophy winner, called his teammate Draisaitl 'invaluable' to the team. 'Does so many good things,' McDavid said. 'Clutch, face-offs, you name it, he does it. Doesn't get enough respect or credit for his defensive abilities. When he's dug in, theres not many better – maybe nobody better.' Edmonton's Game 1 victory marks a stark contrast from last year's final. The Oilers fell into a dreaded 3-0 series deficit before clawing back to force a Game 7 where they suffered heartbreak. The Oilers are looking to become the first Canadian team to win the Cup since the Montreal Canadians in 1993 while the Panthers can be become the first team to win back-to-back Cups since their in-state rival, the Tampa Bay Lightning, did so in 2020 and 2021. Game 2 is on Friday before the series shifts to Sunrise, Florida for Games 3 and 4 starting on Sunday.
