If you can count the longest NHL playoff streak between multiple teams, New York would win by a long shot. it’s been over a half of decade since at least one New York City area team hasn’t been in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
With the Carolina Hurricanes playing for the Stanley Cup for the first time in a decade, the NHL’s longest active playoff drought is over. The current longest playoff streak in the NHL belongs to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who haven’t missed the playoff since the first post-lockout year of 2005-2006. What if I told you there’s an even more impressive playoff streak, but it doesn’t belong to a team? Instead, it belongs to a region. The New York Islanders kept the NHL’s best playoff streak going.
The New York City area is the only area in the NHL with the impressive distinction to have three NHL franchises. They have the Original Six era New York Rangers, the 1980’s dynasty famed Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils. The only other city to come close is Los Angeles with two teams in their market, the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings.
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With multiple franchises, you’d expect the New York area to always have a solid presence in the playoffs, and you’d be right. This season is the first year since the New Jersey Devils moved to the area in 1982 that both the New Jersey Devils and their main rival the New York Rangers missed the playoffs, leaving the Islanders are the only New York-based team in this year’s playoffs.
Prior to the Devil’s arrival in 1982, the last time the Islanders missed the playoffs was the 1973-1974 season. Meanwhile, prior to that, the last time the Rangers missed the playoffs was the 1965-1966 season.
What does this all translate to? The last time the Stanley Cup playoffs didn’t have at least one “New York” team was back in 1966. Once the Islanders clinched a postseason spot this year, so the New York area’s playoff streak remained active and entered its 53rd year. The Devils kept the playoff streak alive last year as the area’s sole representative to qualify for the postseason in 2017-2018.
Obviously, these statistics are skewed since playoff streaks are usually measured by single teams and not a grouping of three individual ones representing the same region. The longest NHL playoff streak for a single team belongs to the Boston Bruins who made the postseason every year from 1967-1968, immediately following the 1967 expansion that doubled the NHL in size, and ended in 1995-1996, one year removed from the first lockout to cancel part of the season.
In that 53 year span, New York hockey fans have seen their share of great success, although shared between three separate fan bases that regularly compete against each other. This includes eight Stanley Cup champions (four for the Islanders, three for the Devils, and one for the Rangers) and 14 Stanley Cup finals appearances (five for both the Devils and Islanders, four for the New York Rangers). Even though only introduced in 1986, the New York area holds three Presidents Trophy championships, all held by the New York Rangers.
The main reason attributing to the long and successful reign of New York hockey can be attributed more to the Devils and Islanders than it can the Rangers. While the Rangers set the groundwork as an original six franchise, and remain the most popular of thee three franchises by a large margin, the New York Islander and New Jersey Devils rank among the most successful NHL expansion franchises. The Oilers and Penguins hold the most cups out of expansion franchises with five apiece, and right after them are the New York Islanders with their four and the New Jersey Devils with their three.
Each team was dominant in their own separate eras over the last three decades as well. The Islanders owned the early 1980’s with their Stanley Cup championships at “Fort Neverlose”, aka the Nassau Colosseum. Meanwhile, the New York Rangers returned to glory with Mark Messier’s guarantee and the 1994 cup championship.
This was immediately followed the New Jersey Devils rise to dominance behind Martin Brodeur, roughly lasting until their loss in the 2012 Stanley Cup final. Once again, the Rangers and Devils traded places with the Rangers having renewed cup aspirations, including a President’s Trophy and Eastern Conference championship in the 2010s.
With the Rangers and Devils in various stages of a rebuild and doubts that the Islanders can repeat upon their success this season, there are doubts if the streak will last beyond this year. But then again, that will be an entirely new season where anything can happen.