1967 was a big year for hockey, the NHL, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The year that history would remember as the height of the hippie counter-culture and the summer of love was an important watershed in the history of the NHL, too. In 1967, the original six team era came to a close with a Toronto Maple Leafs victory, and a massive league expansion occurred that doubled the number of NHL teams from six to twelve.
For Toronto Maple Leafs hockey fans the summer of love was an opportunity to bask in the glory of another Stanley Cup victory-the fourth during the first 7 years of the decade.
Tim Horton’s name again adorned the Stanley Cup, and that name had yet to appear on a paper coffee cup or a box of doughnuts.
Few Leafs fans of the era would have predicted that by the far distant year of 2020, no other Maple Leafs season would have culminated in a Stanley Cup victory celebration.
Since the 1967 expansion season, every one of the original six teams has won the Stanley Cup at least once-save one….our beloved Buds.
As Leafs Nation gears up for some unprecedented summer hockey and a renewed quest for the cup, let’s look back on the years between 1967 and now and the over half a century that our Maple Leafs have failed to appear in the final dance for Lord Stanley’s mug.
These are the Toronto Maple Leafs greatest post-season moments/accomplishments since 1967: