Stanley Cup Winners

The 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs have just kicked off and will run through early June when the fourth and final rounds will take place. Now is a good time to refresh our collective memory of the more than one-century history of the playoffs by looking at the winning teams and how often each team has taken the Stanley Cup home. Here are a few highlights:

Top teams - O Canada. The absolute Stanley Cup champion team by number of wins is the Montreal Canadiens, which has won the title 24 times since 1893. Most of its wins came during the years from 1956 to 1966 when it won five consecutive titles under coach Hector 'Toe' Blake. The team's latest championship was in 1993. The team with the second highest number of Stanley Cup wins is also Canadian, the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it has not won the Stanley Cup since 1967. While the rankings in the Viz of the Day show the team as tied for total wins with the Detroit Red Wings, the Maple Leafs actually have two additional wins under other names: the "Toronto Arenas" (1918) and the "Toronto St. Pats" (1922).

More recent showings - Good ol' USA.  In contrast to the top ranking of Canadian teams by total wins, US teams have a more recent winning record providing them momentum in the current playoffs. The Detroit Red Wings, the third team in the ranking, has won 11 titles, and lifted the trophy most recently in 2008. Another US team that has recently gained success is the Chicago Blackhawks. In 2015 it claimed its third title in the space of five years, bringing its total Stanley Cup wins to six. 

Explore today's Viz of the Day in more detail below, including the number of Stanley Cups won by NHL teams since 1893, along with the name of the winning teams' coaches. You may also check out the original dataset from the NHL on Knoema.com to view more information about playoff finalists through time.