Comparing Playoff (non) Successes

What the hell are you cheering about? The Canucks stink in the playoffs!
… … … Or DO they?! (*Hint – yes, they do.)
(Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)

The Vancouver Canucks are a few days away from starting only their third Conference Final series in their 40 year history. While this is getting a lot of chuckles from around the league, keep in mind that the Canucks are not alone in their limited amount of playoff successes. Yet for some reason, the Canucks and their fans seem to be a lightning rod for playoff criticism.

Canucks fans, don’t worry. We are not alone. We are definitely not alone.

Anecdotally, I knew that there were several teams that have failed miserably in the playoffs throughout their history. And, being the sensitive, snivelling, excuse-making Canucks fan that I am, I wanted to prove that the Canucks were not the worst team ever in the history of hockey and playoffs and ice and sticks because there had to be at least one worse team in the NHL when it comes to playoff success.

So I chose five teams to analyse, including the Canucks. I picked teams that have been around since the Canucks inaugural season, so that we weren’t lumping in the likes of Winnipeg/Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus or even Washington. I looked at Vancouver, Buffalo (the Canucks’ expansion cousins), Los Angeles (the Canucks long-time divisional partner), St. Louis, and Toronto. Yes, I picked 4 other teams that also haven’t won a Stanley Cup since at least 1970-71. There’s the first proof point that the Canucks aren’t the only team in the last 40 years who hasn’t won it all.

Also, I’m not looking at "choke" factor. I’m only looking at the objective numbers of how these teams fared in the playoffs over the years. I don’t care how they ranked, or how well they did in the regular season. I’m only looking at how these 5 teams have done historically in the playoffs since 1970-71.

Ok, so there’s the background. Here’s what I found.

CHART 1: This chart plots the five teams and their progression through the playoffs since 1970. The numbers on the left represent the round to which the team progressed. 0 represents a "Did Not Qualify", while 5 represents winning the Stanley Cup.

CHART 2: This chart shows the number of times each team has reached a particular playoff milestone. For example, LA, Buffalo and St. Louis all made it to the 1st Round (and no further) 14 times.

Some interesting points on these…

After looking at the numbers, I wanted to put something quantitative behind these five teams’ successes or failures. So I scored each team based on their total playoff history. 0 points for a DNQ, 1 point for a 1st round knockout all the way to 5 points for a Stanley Cup championship. Here’s the ranking:

Then I gave each further round some extra weight: 1 point for round 1, 3 points for round 2, 7 points for Conference Final, 10 points for Stanley Cup final, 20 points for a Championship. Here are the weighted rankings:

So giving added weight to each round shows that Buffalo has had more deep playoff success and shows that LA has done very little in the playoffs for the last 40 years. The numbers show the Canucks have been bad in the playoffs, but they’re pretty close to the Leafs and (especially using the weighted system) are way ahead of the Kings. But Buffalo takes the crown here… as the best of the bad playoff teams. Congrats Sabres.

But I looked at the numbers again. I realized that a HUGE chunk of the Canucks poor playoff standings were in the first half of their existance. So I looked at the rankings again, but only from 1991 onward, in other words, the last 20 years.So it’s not a small sample size.

Using the weighted points again, here are the rankings for the last 20 years.

These numbers prove that, at least compared to the other 4 teams listed here, the Canucks playoff failures are backloaded to the first 20 years of their existence. Los Angeles, however, is still the over loser here with only 3 playoff appearances past the first round in the last 20 years.

I am, BY NO MEANS, trying to prove that the Canucks are a successful playoff team. Not at all. With only 3 appearances in the Conference Final in 40 years, it’s impossible to defend that. However, the point was to prove that (a) there are other teams that have stunk it up in the playoffs too, and (b) the Canucks are not the worst playoff team in the last 40 years. In fact, in the last 20 years, they’ve made up some ground. Again, we all know that they’ve not been good in the playoffs. But lo and behold Canucks fans, there are others suffering as much as, if not more than, we are.

Canucks fans, let it be said that your team has been bad in the playoffs. But we ain’t the worst. So let’s all point and laugh at the Los Angeles Kings. And let’s start a chant… "We’re not the worst! We’re not the worst! We’re not the worst!"

That feels better.

 

****

P.S.>

I went through the list more thoroughly again. I went through the 14 teams that have played since 1990-91 that haven’t won a Stanley Cup in that time. I did also include Ottawa and San Jose even though they did join until ’92 and ’91 respectively. I did not include Minnesota, Columbus, Florida, Atlanta or Nashville since they joined the league too late.

So … using the weighted points system here are the rankings of all the non-Cup winning teams over the last 20 years:

** (t) represents a tie in points. I used the deepest playoff appearance as a tie-breaker.

So again… the point of this article was NOT to suggest that the Canucks are a good playoff team. Because THEY ARE NOT. The point of this article was to prove that they have PLENTY of company. So while fans outside of Vancouver love to bash the Canucks for being playoff failures (and rightfully so), they aren’t exactly the worst in the league.

And yes, I know… it all means nothing until the Canucks win a Cup. Believe me, I want nothing more than to cross the Canucks off the list above.