Longest playoff droughts by team

JianYang

Registered User
Sep 29, 2017
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Out of curoisty, I'd like to build a list of the longest playoff drought that each team has accumulated in their history.

I'll start with Montreal and I'm quite certain their longest drought is 3 years although it will stretch to 4 years if they miss them this year.

That would be from 1999 to 2001 and 2022 to current.
 
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This should be not too hard to sql this from my playoff game log data, sadly the Leafs will be quite high I feel like. (just 7 maybe not too bad, forgot they made it in 2013, it is more the non-winning a round drought that was really impressive)
 
This is only the Habs’ third three-year playoff drought, after 1999-2001 and 1920-22. They also only have one other two-year drought, between 2018 and 2019.

Anaheim Ducks: 7 years* (2019-)
Boston Bruins: 8 years (1960-67)
Buffalo Sabres: 14 years* (2012-)
Calgary Flames: 7 years (1997-2003)
Carolina Hurricanes: 9 years (2010-18)
Chicago Blackhawks: 6 years (1947-52)
Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques: 5 years (1988-92)
Columbus Blue Jackets: 7 years (2001-08)
Dallas Stars: 5 years (2009-13)
Detroit Red Wings: 8 years** (2017-)
Edmonton Oilers: 10 years (2007-16)
Florida Panthers: 10 years (2001-11)
Los Angeles Kings: 6 years (2003-09)
Minnesota Wild: 4 years (2009-12)
Nashville Predators: 5 years (1999-2003)
New Jersey Devils/Colorado Rockies: 9 years (1979-87)
New York Islanders: 7 years (1995-2001)
New York Rangers: 7 years (1998-2004)
Ottawa Senators: 7 years** (2018- )
Philadelphia Flyers: 5 years* (1990-94 and 2021-)
Pittsburgh Penguins: 6 years (1983-88)
San Jose Sharks: 6 years* (2020-25)
Seattle Kraken: 2 years* (2024-)
St Louis Blues: 3 years (2006-08)
Tampa Bay Lightning: 6 years (1997-2002)
Toronto Maple Leafs: 7 years (2006-12)
Utah HC/Arizona Coyotes: 7 years (2013-19)
Vancouver Canucks: 4 years (1971-74, 1997-2000 and 2016-19)
Vegas Golden Knights: 1 year (2022)
Washington Capitals: 8 years (1975-82)
Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers: 7 years (2008-14)

* active drought, including this season
** active drought, not including this season
 
Los Angeles Kings: 6 years (2003-09)

First off, great list! Nitpicking here, but the Kings didn't play a home playoff game between April 27th, 2002 and April 19th, 2010. So eight years, or seven seasons plus the lockout year. The crazy part to me is that they haven't won a playoff series in 11 seasons, since winning the Cup in 2014.

The 00s drought was painful but I can only imagine how Sabres fans feel at the moment.
 
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Great work with that list!

Hard to believe Boston had a drought of 8 years in an era of 6 teams. I don't think they have a drought of more than 1-2 years since.

Also, the stl and Vancouver droughts feel like they have been longer than they actually were.
 
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Great work with that list!

Hard to believe Boston had a drought of 8 years in an era of 6 teams. I don't think they have a drought of more than 1-2 years since.

Also, the stl and Vancouver droughts feel like they have been longer than they actually were.

Thanks! Hockey-Reference has a nice feature on the team history pages where they denote playoff appearances next to each season with an asterisk. Had to visit every team’s page and count manually, but it felt interesting enough for me to do it :)

Yeah, the Bruins’ have that 8 year drought, then four separate 2 year droughts. I was surprised they didn’t have a longer one than two years in the DPE. They just never factor into my memories of playoff series of the era, and I can’t say I ever hear people talk about those teams either. At least not for the playoffs. Of course, Thornton would have reached the playoffs in order to earn his reputation as a playoff dud there, but I thought they missed them a few more times in the mid-late 90s and early 2000s.

And yeah, I was aware the Blues hardly ever had bad teams for prolonged stretches, but the Canucks were a slight surprise. Another point explaining the bitterness/hatred towards Messier, I suppose, seeing that his tenure coincided with their longest playoff drought since their fledgling beginning as a franchise.
 
It was really "easy" to make the playoffs from 1981-82 through 1990-91, right? All you had to do was be better than any one club in your division (or two, in the Patrick division). I wonder which club missed the most times during that decade? (Maybe Pittsburgh?)

______________

About Montreal, fans often get the impression that the Habs were always a world-beating club in the "old days". But they weren't always. The Canadiens only became more-or-less consistently strong from the 1951-52 season (already the 10th season of Rocket Richard's career). Prior to that, they basically had just middling or average franchise success.

From 1932-33 through 1950-51 (basically, from Morenz's death through 8-9 seasons of Rocket Richard), the Canadiens had the 4th-best win percentage of all NHL clubs at all in existence then, and the 3rd best of 5 clubs that existed continuously through this period. (Only a tiny bit better than the Montreal Maroons.) They won 2 of 19 Stanley Cups awarded.
 
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It was really "easy" to make the playoffs from 1981-82 through 1990-91, right? All you had to do was be better than any one club in your division (or two, in the Patrick division). I wonder which club missed the most times during that decade? (Maybe Pittsburgh?)

The Rockies/Devils only made the playoffs once in the 1980s (in 1988, when they incredibly made Game 7 of the conference finals).
 
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