The Only Hope

The 1992-1993 Montreal Canadiens, the last Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup

The Canadiens are the only team from Canada to qualify for this year's Stanley Cup playoff:

Perhaps it is just a random quirk of probability, but the numbers are eye-opening nonetheless. For the first time since 1973, only one Canadian team — the Montreal Canadiens, fittingly — qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs, which begin Wednesday. Six of the seven Canadian teams will not play in the postseason, while 15 of the 23 teams based in the United States will.
“Everybody in Canada will be following the Montreal Canadiens, whether they like it or not,” said Michel Vigneault, a sport historian who teaches at McGill University and the University of Quebec at Montreal.
It has been a long time since this hockey-loving nation has had so barren a spring. But then again, it has been a long time since a Canadian team lifted the Stanley Cup — 1993, when Montreal won it....
The Toronto Maple Leafs, the most valuable team in hockey, are a smoking ruin. They were in playoff position until an eight-game losing streak in March wrecked their chances. Last week, they hired as their president Brendan Shanahan, a Hall of Famer from the Toronto area who never played for the Maple Leafs and has never run an N.H.L. team. They hope the infusion of fresh blood will lead them to their first Stanley Cup since 1967.
“I’d love to see the Leafs hoist the Stanley Cup on TV,” James said. “In color, instead of black and white.”

The Canadian teams in the Western Conference were even worse:

Just above the Oilers in the Western standings this year were their Alberta neighbors, the Calgary Flames, who have missed the playoffs five years in a row.
In fact, the bottom four teams in the West are Canadian. A Jets team returned to Winnipeg three seasons ago, and it has fallen short of the playoffs in all three. The team can take solace that the original Winnipeg Jets, now the Phoenix Coyotes, did not make the playoffs either.

It looks like another year will pass without the Cup returning to Canada.