The Montreal Canadiens are the most successful NHL franchise in history. The Canadiens have won a record 23 Stanley Cups, and an additional championship before the trophy debuted. The next closest franchise is the Toronto Maple Leafs with 13 titles. Montreal's first championship came in 1916, and their last one was in 1993. It makes sense that the top 10 teams on this list would be all past champions, so most of the Canadiens' names won't be players we've seen in our lifetimes. However, it's a compilation of NHL legends. Let's look at the ten greatest teams in Canadiens' history.
Canadiens' greatest teams demonstrate pure excellence
The Canadiens have a long list of Hall of Fame players and coaches honored in the historic Toronto hockey cathedral. The players making up the first three teams on this list are some of the best. The Canadiens have arguably the greatest team in hockey history at No. 1, while the other two teams are pillars of hockey history but maybe not teams many of us know.
1. 1976-77
The 1976-77 Canadiens were the most dominant regular season team ever before the Boston Bruins' success in 2022-23. The one thing different about their seasons was that the Canadiens were able to finish the job. They had a .825 winning percentage in the regular season, then went 12-2 in the postseason to win the Stanley Cup.
The team set 21 NHL records, including the most regular season points and biggest goal differential (plus-216). They were led by Scotty Bowman, arguably the greatest coach in hockey history, and had nine future Hall-of-Famers on the roster.
Guy Lafleur won the Hart Trophy, Larry Robinson won the Norris Trophy, and Ken Dryden and Michel Larocque split the Vezina Trophy. The honors showed the Canadiens had the best forward, defenseman, and goaltender in the league.
2. 1959-60
The 1959-60 season was the tenth consecutive time the Canadiens advanced to the Stanley Cup Final and their fifth straight title. They had a .657 winning percentage in the regular season but swept the Chicago Blackhawks and Maple Leafs to go undefeated in the postseason.
The season's most bittersweet memory is Maurice Richard retiring on top with his eighth championship.
3. 1943-44
We're starting to enter a territory where it's too long ago to matter, but a team losing just five out of 50 games in a season is worth remembering. The previously-mentioned Richard led the way with Elmer Lach and Toe Blake, who coached the 1960 team. The Canadiens were led by Bill Durnan, an ambidextrous goalie who won six Vezina Trophies in his career.
The latest Canadian Stanley Cup
Getting the latest Canadian Stanley Cup higher on the list would have been ideal. The problem is that the Canadiens had too many dominant teams in the early stages of the NHL. We'll finally get the Patrick Roy-led 1990s Canadiens in this section, which is an indictment of the franchise's rich history.
4. 1964-65
The Canadiens finally went through a drought in the early-1960s, which was a welcome break for fans sick of seeing the same team lift the Stanley Cup. They couldn't get accustomed to it, as this season marked the first in a run of four championships in five years.
The Canadiens didn't dominate in the regular season and took 13 games to win it in the postseason. However, the league's most successful player Jean Beliveau won the first-ever Conn Smythe Trophy fittingly. The team had seven future Hall-of-Famers and set the tone for one of the best Canadiens dynasties.
5. 1955-56
A team with ten future Hall-of-Famers sitting in fifth on an all-time list is a testament to the Canadiens' history. The 1955-56 team was the first of five consecutive Stanley Cups and led the regular season with a .714 winning percentage. They also led the league in goals scored and fewest goals against.
The team featured Butch Bouchard, Richard and his brother Henri, Beliveau, Bernie Geoffrion, Dickie Moore, Doug Harvey, and Jacques Plante. The previous sentence is a list of the players on the team, not the list of players with their retired numbers hanging in the rafters of the Bell Centre.
6. 1992-93
We've finally reached a team featuring some players we've all seen play in our lifetime. The Canadiens didn't blow anyone away in 1992-23, owning just a .607 winning percentage in the regular season. However, Patrick Roy went on one of the most memorable postseason runs the league has ever seen.
Roy played all 20 playoff games, winning 16 with a .929 save percentage and 2.13 goals-against average. He won ten consecutive overtime games, cementing himself as one of the most clutch goaltenders ever. It was the Canadiens' last championship and the last time a Canadian team had brought it home.
7. 1923-24
We'll switch gears and feature a team that only a person who is 100 years old would have been alive to see. The 13-11-0 Canadiens team had six future Hall of Famers on their roster. The team included Howie Morenz, Aurel Joliat, Joe Malone, Sprague Cleghorn, Sylvio Mantha, and the top goaltender award's namesake, Georges Vezina.
The team won two championships that season, claiming the first NHL title, and then advancing to defeat the Calgary Tigers of the Western Canada Hockey League to win the Stanley Cup.
No one touched the Canadiens in the 1970s and 80s
The Canadiens were the most hated team from the 1960s to the 1980s. They won more than anyone else and racked up Stanley Cup championships. Incredibly, one team can have 11 more titles than the next closest on the list, and most of that gap was made during this era. The Canadiens were the team that everyone modeled themselves after, and it took plenty of expansion for there finally to be some parity.
8. 1977-78
The Canadiens were starting to bore the rest of the league and the fans again in 1977-78. Scott Bowman and his band of nine future Hall of Famers had won two consecutive titles and were coming off the greatest team in history in 1976-77. It would've been hard to top the previous season, but they almost did with a .806 winning percentage. The team finished three points short of beating the record from last season.
The Canadiens and Bruins were one of the greatest rivalries of the era, and Montreal's win in this finals was one of 18 consecutive playoff series victories. Larry Robinson was the team's star all season and finished it by winning the Conn Smythe Trophy.
9. 1967-68
The 1967-68 season was the first since the league expanded to 12 teams. The Maple Leafs had just ruined the Canadiens attempt at three straight titles, but this season was the first of another back-to-back. The league had the original six teams play in one conference during the playoffs to ensure a new team made it to the final.
It didn't matter for the Canadiens, as they swept the Bruins in the quarterfinals, lost one game to the Chicago Blackhawks in the semi-finals, then defeated Bowman's St. Louis Blues in a four-game sweep to win another Stanley Cup.
10. 1970-71
The 1970-71 Canadiens may not have been one of the greatest teams in the regular season, but it had some of the best stories in the franchise's history. Ken Dryden debuted late in the season, going undefeated to end the regular season and then leading the team through the playoffs to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. Dryden had won a championship and playoff MVP before he lost a regular season game and won the Rookie of the Year the following season.
It was also the final season for Jean Beliveau, who won an amazing tenth Stanley Cup. The Canadiens faced some adversity along the way, needing a seventh game to win two of the three series and six games in the other.
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