Founded in 1909, the Canadiens are the longest continuously operating professional hockey team and the only existing NHL club to predate the founding of the NHL itself. Historically, the Canadiens are the greatest team of all, with 24 Stanley Cups – 10 of which have come after 1968. The Maple Leafs have 13, Red Wings 11, Black Hawks 6, Bruins 6, Edmonton 5, Penguins 5, and the Rangers 4., From those teams, post 1968, only the Penguins and Edmonton come the closest with 5 cups.
The Canadiens have had so many incredible seasons, but I’ll start with the one most people would agree with. In the annals of NHL history, few teams have achieved the level of dominance and sheer excellence displayed by the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens. They outscored their opponents by an average of almost 5-2 every single game and eight players had 20 or more goals. Regarded by many as the greatest NHL team ever assembled, the Canadiens of that season left a lasting mark on the sport of hockey and captured the hearts of fans around the world.
Who remembers tuning in on Saturday nights to CBC’s La Soirée du hockey (Hockey Night in Canada) with René Lecavalier’s, “il lance…et compte!?” Led by the legendary Scotty Bowman behind the bench, the Canadiens boasted an unparalleled roster of talent that seemed almost unbeatable. From goaltender Ken Dryden’s acrobatic saves to the fast skating and precision passing of stars like Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson, every member of the team contributed to its overwhelming success. I met an old coach years ago that worked in that era. He told me the roster of that 70s team was so deep, players with broken bones wouldn’t tell anyone for fear of being taken off it. They could have put five different teams on the ice and still won.
The 1976-77 Canadiens began their quest for greatness with an unprecedented display of dominance during the regular season. Starting with their first game of the season, a 10-1 thrashing of the Pittsburgh Penguins. They scored 387 goals, 171 against, and their 216-goal differential is by far the best in NHL history. The team’s 80-game season record of 60 wins, 8 losses (still a record today), and 12 ties earned a remarkable 132 points (.825), setting a new NHL record for the most points in a single season. That record was not broken until the NHL extended the schedule to 82 games and introduced the sudden death overtime period of five minutes, where the winner receives an extra 1 point for the win. After the Canadiens held the record for 46 years, the Bruins broke the pts total in 2023 with a 65-2-5 record (.823) and 135 pts. It’s important to note that 11 of Boston’s 65 wins were in overtime, leaving them with 54 regular time wins. They played 82 games and if the Canadiens had played under today’s overtime rules and point system, their total would have been even more impressive at 144 points. Perhaps it could have even been 148 points with the two extra games? The 1976–77 Canadiens continue to hold the all-time records for regulation time wins (60) as well as points per game (1.650).
But it was during those playoffs that the Canadiens truly cemented their legacy as one of the greatest teams in NHL history. They steamrolled through the postseason with an air of invincibility, dispatching their opponents with a ruthless efficiency that captured their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship in convincing fashion with only 2 losses. When you consider their dominance that season, you must look at it through their four-year run in which they won four Stanley Cups and established themselves as arguably the most dominant dynasty in the history of the sport. In those four years, the Canadiens only lost 46 games out of 320 games. Out of their 4 Stanley Cup Final Series games, they played 19 games and lost only 3 of them! By the end of their careers, the players from those four seasons totalled 2,502 goals and 6,388 points. Ten of them are in the Hall of Fame, including Bowman, the NHL’s all-time coaching leader with both wins (1,244 regular season) and Stanley Cups (9). If not for the retirement of Dryden (6 Stanley Cups in a short 8-year NHL career) and Scotty Bowman moving on, it’s possible they could have won a 5th in a row like they did in the 50s.
Even decades later, the legacy of the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens continues to loom large in the collective memory of hockey fans everywhere. They are the standard by which all other great teams in the NHL will continue to be measured.
