Some records get broken, and some settle in. This one settled in.
10 out of 11
In the spring of 1993, the Canadiens played eleven games that went to overtime. They won 10.
The number is striking on its own. What is more striking is the gap to the next one: the second-best playoff mark is 7 overtime wins, by Carolina in 2002. Since 1993, nobody has done better than seven.
Why it is so hard to repeat
An overtime period is, roughly, a coin flip. Two tired teams, one goal that ends the game, and chance weighing more than it does anywhere else. Winning ten of them in a single run takes a season's worth of luck — or something statistics struggle to name.
It also requires, simply, playing a lot of overtime. A playoff run rarely contains more than three or four. Eleven in one spring is an anomaly before you even look at the results.
The most recent to date
That 1993 title remains the Canadiens' twenty-fourth and most recent Cup. Thirty-three years, the longest wait in club history — and yet far from the longest in the league: the Toronto Maple Leafs have not won since 1967.