Are there many flukey, shouldn't even be there NHL teams winning the Stanley cup? Seems to me that despite the added hurdle of needing to win more and longer series, the past 8 or so in a row have all be excellent teams. While you get the occasional 8 seed, it's often the case that it was actually a great team that didn't have a great season (LAK). You had almost an entire decade where only Detroit, Colorado and New Jersey won all the cups. You've had the same 5 dominant teams controlling the Cup for the past several years. I think people in general overplay the crapshoot storyline. MLB is probably the most and it's not even a true crapshoot. Yea, NHL is predictable compared relative to MLB I'd go: NBA NHL NFL MLB