Top Five NHL First-Round Upsets Of The Last 20 Years
As the NHL regular season winds down, hockey fans know what's coming next: the long‑awaited Stanley Cup playoffs.
Powerhouse teams like the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and others are poised to enter the post-season as heavy favorites, each with a real chance to make a deep run, or even capture the coveted Cup.
However, throughout NHL history, hockey fans have witnessed multiple instances of top Cup contenders suffering early playoff exits against teams considerably lower in the standings, sometimes as early as the opening round.
2. Florida Panthers vs. Boston Bruins (2023)
While the Florida Panthers are known today as two-time Stanley Cup champions, they just barely snuck in as the second wild-card team in the Eastern Conference in 2023.
Compared to the rest of the teams on this list, on paper, the Panthers had the toughest first-round matchup – the Boston Bruins.
The 2022-23 Bruins went a historic 65-12-5, breaking records for most points and wins in a season in NHL history.
With solid defense, a Vezina-winning season from goaltender Linus Ullmark and a breakout 113-point campaign from right winger David Pastrnak, the Bruins looked primed to win the Cup.
So when the Bruins took a 3-1 series lead after Game 4, many assumed they had the series in the bag.
They were very wrong.
The Panthers kept the series alive with an overtime-winner by Matthew Tkachuk in Game 5, and they forced a Game 7 with a 7-5 victory in Game 6.
The final game of the series was extremely close. In fact, if it weren't for a late tying goal with a minute remaining in the third period by defenseman Brandon Montour, the Bruins would have narrowly escaped this first-round series.
But with that goal and an overtime-winner from Carter Verhaeghe, the Panthers pulled off one of the biggest playoff upsets of all-time.
They made it to the Stanley Cup final that year, and they eventually won back-to-back Cup finals in 2024 and 2025.
1. Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (2019)
While they didn't have the greatest record of all-time like the 2022-23 Bruins, the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning were an equally formidable squad.
Finishing the regular season in a tie for the second-most wins in NHL history, the Lightning were a true powerhouse, with three players scoring more than 90 points.
One of these players, right winger Nikita Kucherov, had the best season of his career up to that point with 41 goals and 128 points, winning him the Ted Lindsay, Hart and Art Ross Trophies.
Coming into the 2019 post-season, the Presidents' Trophy winners were heavy favorites to win the Cup.
Their first step to reach that goal was a first-round bout with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The 2018-19 Blue Jackets did feature a 27-year-old Artemi Panarin, who put up a solid 87 points, but apart from him, no one on the team even had 70 points.
It seemed unlikely that Columbus would put up much of a fight, with many fans and media alike assuming it would be a quick sweep for Tampa Bay.
When the series got underway, the total opposite occurred.
The Lightning did not look like Cup favorites, and the Blue Jackets looked like an all-star team.
The Blue Jackets outscored the Lightning 19-8 and swept them in the process.
While it could be argued that the Panthers pulled off the bigger upset in 2023, given the Bruins' record-breaking season, the Panthers went on to win two Stanley Cup championships in the following seasons, so they clearly had that 'up next' factor.
But with the Blue Jackets, their victory truly came out of nowhere. The team has failed to recapture that success since, and while the Panthers took the full seven games to beat the Bruins, the Blue Jackets didn't even let Tampa Bay get a single game.
That is why their upset sits at the top spot on this list.
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This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 4:00 AM.