The Montreal Canadiens Hall of Fame

Boy, the Montreal Canadiens own just about every major team record in NHL history and here’s another one.

The Canadiens have the best all-time points percentage of any franchise. For the Habs, that’s 95 years of consistent high-level play. Even the New York Yankees can’t match that.

It’s after Montreal that things get interesting on today’s list. There are definitely some surprises.

But first, what is points percentage? According to my source, hockey-reference.com, it’s “points divided by maximum points.” So, of the total amount of points available (GP X 2), how many points did the team actually accumulate through wins, ties and now overtime losses?

Take the Canadiens, for example. They’ve played 6,131 games in their history as of the date of this post (Feb. 12, 2013). So, Montreal had 12,262 points available  and earned 7,216 of them (7,216/12,262 = .588). The Canadiens have won nearly 60% of their potential points.

Here are the full rankings for every NHL franchise.

The Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins, classic and championship teams, round out the top three.

Then (what?!) the Buffalo Sabres and Nashville Predators. In 42 years, the Sabres have made two Stanley Cup Finals appearances, losing both. The sneaky Predators, who have only been around 14 seasons,  started out typically poorly, but have really come on the past eight years.

The middle of the pack is fairly expected, but in the bottom half, more surprises.

What are the New Jersey Devils, one of the most successful teams of the past 20 years, five-time Stanley Cup finalists and three-time champions, doing in 22nd? Well, they were pretty hideous in the early years (going back to their Kansas City Scouts and Colorado Rockies days), putting up 11 straight years with 22 or fewer wins.

The other two New York teams haven’t fared much better. And the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks have won less than 50% of of their maximum points.

Photo: blog.livedesignonline.com