Edmonton Oilers may finish Canada’s Stanley Cup drought with Recreation 7 win

However since 1994, when the Vancouver Canucks misplaced a taut seven-game collection to the New York Rangers, the NHL’s Canadian groups have been solely fleeting opponents for the Stanley Cup. Solely six groups from up north have reached the NHL’s championship collection. None of them have received, although the Edmonton Oilers can finish that drought on Monday evening by beating the Florida Panthers in Recreation 7 of this yr’s Stanley Cup finals.

“There needs to be a curse,” Craig Button, a former NHL government and scout who now serves as a hockey analyst for Canada’s TSN community, advised the Nationwide Publish at first of this season. “What else may clarify all of it?”

Oh, there’s loads of attainable explanations: free brokers who would moderately play within the low- or no-tax Solar Belt cities that now populate the NHL, with the added bonus of good climate; the sensation that taking part in in the USA provides gamers far better probabilities to market their movie star; the alleged financial disadvantages that smaller-market Canadian groups face; and the truth that Canadian hockey followers will purchase tickets even when their group is unhealthy, so why fear an excessive amount of about being good? There’s additionally a handy boogeyman in longtime NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, an American who has led the NHL’s drive to develop properly south of the forty ninth parallel.

“They’re powerful markets to achieve success in,” Canadian-born Vincent Damphousse, a member of the 1993 Montreal Canadiens group that was the final Canadian franchise to win the Stanley Cup, advised the Related Press. “It’s been powerful. There have been rebuilds and good years and unhealthy years and I’m hoping for successful story in Canada, for certain. I don’t want any unhealthy luck on the Canadian groups.”

Regardless of the motive, no Canadian group has hoisted the Stanley Cup since these 1993 Canadiens. It’s a statistical improbability: In 2022, the Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn discovered that the probability of such a drought by the NHL’s seven Canadian franchises to be 0.7 of a p.c. There was the next likelihood (1 p.c) that Canadian groups ought to have received 10-plus titles over that span, primarily based on the underlying metrics.

“The Canadian groups have been neglected within the chilly lengthy sufficient,” Quebec-born former NHL participant and broadcaster Invoice Clement as soon as mentioned. “It’s their flip.”

Clement made this remark not not too long ago however in 2002, when three Canadian groups reached the Jap Convention semifinals. However it wasn’t to be. The Carolina Hurricanes, from that famous hockey mecca of Raleigh, N.C., first knocked out the Canadiens within the East semifinals, then the Toronto Maple Leafs within the convention finals. The drought continued.

There have been a number of shut calls. In 2004, the Calgary Flames misplaced the Stanley Cup finals to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven video games, with some feeling that the Flames’ Martin Gelinas was robbed of what may have been the cup-clinching aim late in Recreation 6 (the play was not reviewed).

Within the subsequent Stanley Cup finals, the Oilers erased a 3-1 collection deficit in opposition to the Carolina Hurricanes but in addition fell in Recreation 7. The Ottawa Senators performed for the Stanley Cup in 2007, dropping to the Anaheim Geese in 5 video games. In 2011, the Vancouver Canucks had home-ice benefit and received the primary two video games of their collection in opposition to the Boston Bruins, however they misplaced Recreation 7 at dwelling after scoring solely eight targets the complete collection, the fewest of any group that performed in a seven-game collection in NHL historical past. The Canadiens had been the newest Canadian group to present it a shot, however they fell meekly to the Lightning in 2021.

The Oilers, who grew to become solely the tenth NHL group to erase a 3-0 collection deficit, can finish this baffling drought for Canada’s NHL groups on Monday evening with a win in South Florida.

“All of Canada’s behind you. Let’s convey the Cup dwelling,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on social media at first of the Stanley Cup finals.