4 days ago
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
