History of NHL underdogs: A look at the Cinderellas to make the Stanley Cup Final

South Florida is abuzz with championship excitement these days. And while the Miami Heat are among the final two NBA teams for the sixth time in the past 13 seasons, the Florida Panthers are in the NHL’s showcase series for the first time in almost 30 years.

On the flip side, basketball rarely sees a No. 8 seed like the Heat win its conference. In fact, it hasn’t happened since the New York Knicks did it in an upside down, lockout-shortened 1999 campaign when there wasn’t really that much to choose between the top and bottom seeds.

The NBA is the domain of the overdogs. Crazy, all-over-the-place hockey? Let’s just say it tends to be more egalitarian.

Still, any time a team proves the regular season really is no more than an 82-game dress rehearsal, we get excited. With that in mind, let’s use the 1996 and 2023 Panthers squads that unexpectedly won the Eastern Conference as book ends and highlight — in chronological order — some of the more notable Cinderella runs to the Stanley Cup Final in the past 27 years.

1999 Buffalo Sabres

You could make a case they don’t belong on this list based on going to the Eastern Conference Final the year before.

But, really, what’s more underdog than Buffalo?

The Sabres finished seventh in the Eastern Conference and their leading playoff scorers were, no joke, defencemen Alexei Zhitnik and Jason Woolley with 15 points in 21 games. What Buffalo did have, however, was ‘The Dominator’ and Dominik Hasek finished the 1999 post-season with a .939 save percentage and a 1.77 goals-against average. That said, Hasek missed two games in the Eastern Conference Final versus the Toronto Maple Leafs with an injury and the Sabres still managed a five-game win.

The run only ended in Game 6 of the final on Dallas Star Brett Hull’s Cup-winning overtime tally that’s still clearly no goal if you ask anybody in Western New York.

2002 Carolina Hurricanes

Technically the Canes were a No. 3 seed thanks to winning the old ‘South-least’ Division with 91 points, but only one of the other 15 playoff teams that year finished with fewer points than Carolina.

Also, that squad was coached by current Panthers bench boss Paul Maurice, so we had to give them a nod. The Canes pulled out Game 1 of the final in overtime and led Game 3 with under two minutes to go, only to see the stacked Detroit Red Wings get the equalizer, then seize a 2-1 series lead on Igor Larionov’s triple-OT winner. Detroit finished the job in five.

2003 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim

Guided by rookie coach Mike Babcock and backstopped by Jean-Sebastien Giguère, the seventh-ranked Ducks stormed their way to a Western Conference title with a shocking 12-2 record. From the, “you would not see that today” file, Paul Kariya was flattened by New Jersey Devils defenceman Scott Stevens in Game 6 of the final, only to return and score a goal that helped Anaheim force Game 7.

The Devils took the winner-take-all affair on home ice, but Giguère was named playoff MVP and remains the last guy to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as a member of the losing squad.

2004 Calgary Flames

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The sixth-ranked Flames became the first team in league history to topple three 100-point clubs en route to the final. (It’s since become more common in the “loser point” era, when more teams finish with 100-plus points).

Once in the showcase series, Calgary dueled the 106-point Tampa Bay Lighting, meaning it faced the first- (Detroit), second- (Tampa) third- (San Jose) and seventh-ranked teams from the regular season in the post-season. That series ended with a Tampa championship, but only after seven hard-fought games and one goal you could pretty easily argue should have handed the Cup to Calgary. That occurred in overtime of Game 6 in southern Alberta, when the puck caromed off Martin Gelinas’ skate and just over the line before hitting Nikolai Khabibulin’s pad. It was reviewed, but the teams played on and Martin St. Louis forced Game 7.

2006 Edmonton Oilers

After barely squeaking into the playoffs as the No. 8 seed, the Oilers caught fire. They upset a Red Wings team that finished 29 points ahead of them in the first round, won four straight against San Jose after dropping Games 1 and 2, then dusted the Ducks in five games in the Western Conference Final.

Much of the Oilers’ success was built on the goaltending of in-season acquisition Dwayne Roloson. However, with under five minutes to go in Game 1 of the final versus Carolina, Roloson caught the worst of a collision on the lip of his crease between teammate Marc-André Bergeron and Canes forward Andrew Ladd. His series was over, and with the score tied 4-4, in stepped Ty Conklin. With 31 seconds left on the clock, Conklin got crossed up behind the net with Oilers defenceman Jason Smith and the result was Rod Brind’Amour wrapping the puck into an empty cage. The Canes took a 3-1 series lead, but Edmonton — with Jussi Markkanen in net — battled back to force Game 7, which Carolina narrowly won 3-1 after an ENG.

2010 Philadelphia Flyers

True story: The 2010 Flyers needed a shootout victory over the Rangers on the final day of the season to clinch a post-season berth, yet still wound up with home-ice advantage in the Eastern Conference Final. That’s because both the seventh-seeded Flyers and eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens finished with 88 points that year, but Philly had the tiebreaker over Montreal. Thus, when the two worst regular season squads in the entire playoffs wound up meeting in the semifinals, the series began in Philly — where it also ended in Game 5.

The Flyers were definitely underachievers all year, often being undone by awful goaltending. But Michael Leighton — claimed off waivers earlier that year — stepped up in the post-season, as Philly gave Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane all they could handle in their first Cup final before the young Hawks won Game 6 on Kane’s “is it definitely in?” overtime marker.

The 2012 Cup Finalists

It was an all-underdog affair when the sixth-seeded New Jersey Devils faced the No. 8-ranked Los Angeles Kings. The Devils leaned on some overtime magic along the way, winning extra-time contests in both Games 6 and 7 of the first round to skate past the Panthers, then clinching their finals appearance with an Adam Henrique overtime winner versus the Rangers in Game 6 of the East final. The Kings, meanwhile, mowed down their opponents, arriving at the final with a 12-2 mark. They ran that to 14-2 with two overtime road victories in Games 1 and 2, eventually closing out the Devils in six games after jumping out to a 3-0 series lead.

2017 Nashville Predators

For so many years, very competitive, gritty Nashville teams failed to win two playoff rounds and rarely managed to win even one series. That all changed in 2017, in the first season after the ground-shaking one-for-one mega-deal that put P.K. Subban in mustard and Shea Weber in Montreal.

After snagging the final Western Conference playoff berth, the Preds effectively ended the Blackhawks dynasty with a shocking first-round sweep. They dumped St. Louis to advance to the first conference final in franchise history, then clipped the Ducks once there.

Unfortunately, Nashville lost top-line centre Ryan Johansen with an injury in the semis and though they pushed Sidney Crosby and Co. to six games, they couldn’t stop the Penguins from winning a second straight Cup.

2018 Vegas Golden Knights

How can you call a 109-point division winner a Cinderella club? Well, how can you NOT call a squad that makes the Cup final in its first season of play Cinderella squad? It’s still kind of insane this happened. Vegas actually swept its first-even playoff series, a 4-0 triumph over the Kings. They also may have broken the Winnipeg Jets because that 2018 young Jets squad — which appeared destined for big things — has never seemed the same since losing a five-game Western Conference Final to a Vegas club that finished just behind them in the regular season.

Of course, the Hockey Gods had to get Alex Ovechkin his Cup that year and Vegas’ incredible Year 1 run ended with a five-game loss to the Washington Capitals.

Five years later, the Knights are back trying to finish the job.

2019 St. Louis Blues

Yes, St. Louis was the fifth-ranked team in the Western Conference when the 2019 playoffs began, but when the Blues woke up on New Year’s Day in the middle of that campaign, they were tied with the Ottawa Senators for the fewest points in the NHL.

Jordan Binnington came out of nowhere to post a 24-5-1 record in the second half of the season and the team carried that success right through the post-season. It looked like the Blues may have flubbed their chance at the Cup when they lost Game 6 on home ice to the Bruins, but they returned the favour with a road victory in Game 7 at TD Garden.

2021 Montreal Canadiens

Perhaps more than any team on this list, the Habs looked like roadkill in the first round. Montreal’s season could have ended with a Toronto overtime goal in Game 5 or Game 6. Instead, the Habs pulled them both out, then nearly blanked the Leafs on home ice in Game 7. By the time they swept the Jets in Round 2, the Canadiens had somehow won seven straight games to find themselves in the East, er, West, uh, league semifinal versus Vegas.

(That was the pandemic-shortened year where we had no Eastern or Western Conference; just one all-Canadian division and three other groups in the U.S. that made geographical sense).

Artturi Lehkonen’s goal 1:39 into overtime in Game 6 gave Montreal a home-ice win that put the team in the final for the first time since winning the Cup in 1993. The Canadiens were completely overmatched versus a Tampa Bay team in search of its second straight Cup, but still pulled out Game 4 in overtime and narrowly dropped Game 5 1-0 in Tampa to end the series.

We had no idea on the night Tampa hoisted the Cup that we had effectively witnessed the end of both Shea Weber’s and Carey Price’s careers.