NHL Stanley Cup Championship Droughts

Last night the Los Angeles Kings erased their 45 year Stanley Cup drought with a Game 6 win over the New Jersey Devils. The NHL's other 29 teams, however, extended their respective winless droughts by another year. The chart below describes, in descending order, the number of years each team has gone without winning a Stanley Cup, showing the last year they hoisted the hardware. Where no year appears, that team has NEVER won the Cup.

TOR: 45 (1967)
STL: 45
BUF: 42
VAN: 42
WAS: 38
PHI: 37 (1975)
PHO: 33
NYI: 29 (1983)
CGY: 23 (1989)
EDM: 22 (1990)
SJS: 21
OTT: 20
MTL: 19 (1993)
FLA: 19
NYR: 18 (1994)
NAS: 14
DAL: 13 (1999)
WPG: 13
MIN: 12
CLB: 12
COL: 11 (2001)
NJD: 9 (2003)
TBL: 8 (2004)
CAR: 6 (2006)
ANA: 5 (2007)
DET: 4 (2008)
PIT: 3 (2009)
CHI: 2 (2010)
BOS: 1 (2011)
LAK: 0 (2012)

The average drought rests at 18.8 years with longest being 45 years (Toronto Maple Leafs, St. Louis Blues), 9 years shy of the all-time winless streak of 54 years belonging to the New York Rangers (1940-1994). Not only has Toronto failed to win since the NHL expanded beyond its original six teams, they haven't even reached the Final during that span.

Arguably more intriguing than the length of each team's drought is that 12 of the 30 current NHL teams (40%) have never won the Stanley Cup. In fact, 6 of the 30 teams (20%) have never skated in a Final in their franchise history (Phoenix Coyotes, San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators, Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota Wild, Columbus Blue Jackets).

In 10 months the Stanley Cup playoffs commence and the quest for the Cup continues for 16 of the 30 clubs that qualify for the postseason. Early Vegas odds favor the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7 to 1 while the Kings probability to capture consecutive Cups is currently calculated at 11 to 1.