And didn't they get Joe Thornton in the draft the year after the end of their streak?

That's impressive. Hell, if not for the 69-70 season, the Montreal Canadiens would have the record by a mile at 46 seasons. But instead, they narrowly missed the playoffs that season, and ended with separate streaks of 21 and 24 seasons So to put together 29 straight seasons with playoffs together is just ridiculous

Yeah I noticed this fact was well a week or so back when looking at 77# Ray Borque's career. 21 NHL seasons = 19.5 seasons with the Bruins and a1.5 seasons with the Avalanche and from his career start in 1979 till end at 2001 (finally winning the Cup that year), Borque only ONE time missed the play-offs, and that was with the Bruins of the 1996-1997 season, ended Bruins record long streak of 29 years that started in 1967-1968. Heck of a record that just is impossible to break in today's NHL hockey with all the tallent and all the more teams that competes for the 8 Conference play-off spots in East and likewise in the West. What was a miss for Borque was that he did not take the oppertunity to represent Canada in the IIHF World Championship of 1997, as not only was Canada a gold medal winner that year, but also to get into international preperation on big ice competition up for the 1998 Olympics in Nagano!

Montreal showed them the exit door elev... eleven?! times in that span

To put it in perspective even more, Toronto & Boston are tied for the longest currently active streak at eight seasons.

Buddy as a life long Boston resident and Bruins fan those teams weren’t elite and most people in Boston were sick of the team being good enough to make the playoffs but were barely better than a 1 and done in the playoffs

I'd be surprised If the record ever gets beaten.

the hawks had 0 cups in their streak.... that actualy amazing. and blues did a 25 with no cups

If it wasn't for the fluke way the habs missed the playoffs in 1970 they would have obliterated that record