Least Losses In A Single Season
Speaking of unbreakable records, there is none more impressive than the greatness of the Canadiens 1970’s dynasty. Specifically, the 1976-77 team has gone down in the record books as the greatest team in NHL history.
And why not? They were carried by a terrific offence headed by Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt, a trio of incredible defenders in Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard as well as star goaltender Ken Dryden. Add in Scotty Bowman behind the bench, sprinkle in a couple of more Hall of Fame players like Jacques Lemaire, Yvan Cournoyer and Bob Gainey, and you have the best team ever assembled.
The numbers prove it, especially the fact that they lost just eight games all season. That is a full 80 game schedule as well. The team went 60-8-12, meaning they were 1.5 times more likely to tie a game than lose is, and 7.5 times more likely to win that lose on any given night.
Just eight losses in a full season is something that we will never see again. The 2021-22 Canadiens lost eight games in most eight game stretches last season, forget the full schedule.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are known as the closest thing we have seen to a dynasty in recent years and they lost seven playoff games the last time they won the Stanley Cup in 2021. Those Lightning had an incredible regular season in 2018-19, perhaps the best we have seen since the Canadiens most recent dynasty, and they lost 16 games.
Losing just eight games in a full season is unfathomable. That’s the same number of games the Toronto Maple Leafs lose in just two playoff series every two years. It’s unimaginable a team could go a full season losing just eight times.
It will surely never happen again.
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