It Is The Spring Of The Downtrodden

The first thing you notice about the right side of the Stanley Cup playoff map is the almost complete absence of continuity—that is, if you're the sort of person who nerds out on that sort of thing, in which case you've got deeper personality flaws than we are equipped to tackle. But it does have that weird strangers-on-a-train feel that the NHL tends to brag about a bit more than it should.

The two teams with the best-looking recent history are located in Tampa and Raleigh, which took you at least five years to get used to, but the rest of this year's field is very much the island of misfit toys. For starters, the four worst teams in the Eastern Conference last year are in the playoffs this time. There are no New York City–ish teams for the first since the Colorado Rockies moved to New Jersey 44 years ago. The two-time champion Panthers had everybody get hurt in unison and were out of contention by Valentine's Day. The never-not-smug Toronto Maple Leafs are in an abyss that the management thinks can be escaped through the use of ChatGPT instead of draft choices, and the Washington Ovechkinii are off this spring for only the third time in 18 years.

There are Cup droughts to contend with, like Philadelphia (51 years), Montreal (33), Carolina (20), Boston (15), and, sure, what the hell, Pittsburgh (9). But if you want to boil the East down (an appealing idea), it's about two teams who not only have never won a Cup, but were considered roadside carcasses four short months ago: the Buffalo Sabres and Ottawa Senators.