New NHL curse: scored 100 points — left without the Stanley Cup

Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

But different teams are playing in the Stanley Cup final: "Carolina" and "Vegas", and neither of these teams has anyone who scored 100 or more points in the 2025/26 regular season (goals + assists are counted), writes Sports.ru.

There are so many superstitions, bad omens, and just interesting patterns in the NHL that can prevent a team from winning the Stanley Cup, it makes your head spin. Here are just a few of them:

— you can't win the regular season;

— you can't touch the trophies for winning the conference final (i.e., the overall semifinal);

— you can't be the best goaltender of the regular season, etc.

The winners of the "Hart Trophy", awarded to the best scorer of the regular season, have not won the Stanley Cup since 2004, and back then, Martin St. Louis's "Tampa Bay" was very lucky in Game Six of the final against "Calgary".

No one has managed to win the "Vezina Trophy" (awarded to the best goaltender) and a championship ring in one season since Tim Thomas, and 16 years have passed since then.

And the "Maurice Richard Trophy" [awarded to the player who scores the most goals in the regular season, without counting assists — NN] — that's a black mark altogether.

Alexander Ovechkin has 9 of them, but only one playoff victory. Among other snipers, only Sidney Crosby has won the Stanley Cup, and the trophy has been awarded since 1999.

There is a list of the top scorers of teams that won the Cup after Malkin's and Crosby's "Pittsburgh" in 2009. Only two champions had hockey players with 90 or more points, and four had no one scoring more than 70.

The top scorer for "Vegas" in the 2022/23 regular season was Jack Eichel (66 points), and the club won the Stanley Cup.

This trend worked in the 90s and before the great lockout of 2004. For example, in 1993, 21 players from 14 teams scored 100+ points, and the playoff victory went to "Montreal", whose most effective player was Vincent Damphousse with 97 points.

A year later, the "Rangers" won the Stanley Cup with Sergei Zubov as their top scorer. Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr easily scored 110-120 points during the era of the so-called "dead puck," while "Detroit" reigned in the playoffs, where under Scotty Bowman every line was a first line, and the most talented forward even played defense.

Currently, "Vegas" and "Carolina" are playing in the Stanley Cup Final.

"Carolina" won 4:2 today and leads the series 3:2 (in this year's final series, by the way, you need to score at least four goals to win a game).

The next game is on Monday night in Las Vegas. The series is best-of-seven.

Both "Carolina" and "Vegas" have won the Stanley Cup only once.

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