Montreal Canadiens: An Important Caveat About the Bruins Wins Record

On Sunday, the Boston Bruins set an NHL record for most wins in a regular season in NHL history with their 63rd victory. And with still two games remaining, one of them against the Canadiens, there’s a good chance they could reach 65 when it’s all said and done. There is no doubt that this is an incredible feat, one that the Bruins organization should be very proud of, but I do feel like an asterisk should be added. The Bruins and the 2018-19 Lightning before them had an advantage not provided to them by all teams.

The NHL does not seem to recognize regulation wins with quite the same honour as they do total wins. Given that they are worth the same number of points, I can see why. But I believe both stats should be recognized, with wins in regulation being the more impressive of the two stats. Here’s why.

The NHL eliminated overtime from regular season play during the 1943-43 season, and they did not bring it back until the 1983-84 season. This means that both the 76-77 and 77-78 Montreal Canadiens did not have the luxury of extra time to decide a winner. Instead, they had their games end in ties. In 1977, the Canadiens had 12 ties and just eight losses. No, that is not a typo. They lost just eight times during the regular season, an NHL record. Perhaps even more impressive, they lost just once on home ice that year to the Bruins of all teams.

The reason I bring this up is because every team ahead of the Canadiens on this list had the benefit of extra time to decide those games. Only the Red Wings didn’t have the shootout on top of overtime, so they still finished with seven ties that year. So just looking at regulation wins, the 1976-77 Canadiens sit alone on top of that list with 60, followed closely by the 1977-78 Canadiens and 1995-96 Red Wings, each with 59.

I say this not to diminish the Bruins or any other team that may compete or have competed for this record in recent history. Instead, it’s just to level the playing field. It doesn’t seem fair to use this as proof the Bruins are one of the best teams in NHL history when other teams, not just the Canadiens, don’t have this benefit. As mentioned previously, I just hope the NHL starts recognizing regulation wins and total wins because, in today’s NHL, those are not the same thing. But they used to be.

This is not an attempt to dub the 1976-77 Canadiens as the best team in NHL history, nor is it an attempt to claim the Bruins are not. This is just a correction of what I think is a flawed stat, or rather a stat that could use additional context. The same could be done when talking about the 70s-era Canadiens or even the Red Wings of the 90s. While what both teams did was impressive, they didn’t have to deal with the salary cap the way the Lightning and Bruins did when they won 60 games. Regardless, both teams should be in the debate for the greatest team of all time, especially if the Bruins can cap this off with a Cup.

Perhaps the most interesting part about this whole debate is not about who the best team is, at least not to me. All of that is subject to anyone’s opinion, especially if you limit it to just the regular season. Because of the top five teams for most wins in a regular season, only two have won the cup, with the Bruins fate yet to be determined. Both the Canadiens in 76-77 and 77-78 went on to win the cup. Meanwhile, the Red Wings lost to Patrick Roy and the Avalanche in the conference finals, while the Lightning were swept in the first round by the Columbus Blue Jackets. We’ll see if the Bruins can do what those two couldn’t.

The other thing worth noting is just how good Scotty Bowman really was behind the bench. The top three teams all-time in regulation wins were coached by Bowman, and so was the fourth. The list is as follows:

1. 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens (60 wins),

2. 1977-78 Montreal Canadiens (59 Wins),

3. 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings (59 Wins)

4. 1975-76 Montreal Canadiens (58 Wins)

Bowman won cups with all three Canadiens teams, and although he didn’t win with that Red Wings team, he more than made up for it by winning three cups with the Red Wings, all coming after that season, including back-to-back in 96-97 and 97-98. So I would say it’s not a stretch to call Bowman the greatest coach in NHL history, and this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to proving that.

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Perhaps in the future, I’ll write an article on why I think the 1976-77 Canadiens are the best team in NHL history, which isn’t the norm amongst hockey fans, but this was not that article. My hope is that in the future, we start talking about wins as if they are equal because they are not. Personally, I think regulation wins should be worth more points than overtime wins in 2023, but that’s an article for another day.