Regular Seasons to Remember

As the Rays continue their ridiculous start (seriously, are they ever gonna lose?), the Bruins are wrapping up the winningest regular season in NHL history.  Boston has 64 wins and 133 points, both NHL records, with one game left in the regular season.  Of course, none of that will mean anything if the Bruins don't win the Cup.  Just ask the Boston-area football team about that!

That's the thing about a great regular season.  That's all it is.  A great regular season.  Who cares that the 2007 Patriots went 16-0?  The one game they lost just happened to be the Super Bowl.  Or how about the last NHL team to flirt with the wins record?  The 2018-19 Lightning had 62 wins and 128 points.  They got swept in the first round by Columbus (then would go on to win the Cup the next two years and make the Cup Final the year after that).  Then there's last year's Dodgers, winners of 111 games...and Division Series losers.

The truly special teams are the ones that take a great regular season and back it up by winning the championship.  Your 1995-96 Bulls.  Your 1998 Yankees.  Your 1985 Bears.  Can the Bruins join their ranks?  Or are they destined to continue the Curse of the President's Trophy?

Should the Bruins win, though, they'll be right up there among the single greatest seasons among all sports.  But they need to win the Cup to join the exclusive ranks on this list, which only includes teams from the last 50 years.  So no 1972 Dolphins.  (It also does not include the 2020 Dodgers, who did win the World Series after going 43-17, but that season has an asterisk because of how short and unique it was, so it doesn't seem like a fair comparison.)

10. 1986 Mets: They went 108-54.  They won an epic NLCS against the Astros and an epic World Series against the Red Sox.  They had Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter.  Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were in their primes.  The '86 Mets could've been the start of a dynasty.  Instead, they were a one-and-done champion.  After one of the most memorable seasons in baseball history.

9. 1999-2000 Lakers: This was the start of the Shaq-Kobe dynasty, and is widely considered one of the greatest teams in NBA history.  They went 67-15 and had three separate winning streaks of 16, 19 and 11.  Their record in February and March was a ridiculous 27-2!  Shaq had arguably his best season, and a 21-year-old Kobe was just starting to become a superstar.

8. 1993-94 Rangers: Did I rank the '93-94 Rangers a little high?  Maybe.  But this team will always hold a special place in my heart.  They ended the 54-year drought.  I can still hear Sam Rosen saying, "The waiting is over!  The New York Rangers are the Stanley Cup champions."  Then seeing an elated Mark Messier lifting up the Cup and skating it around the Garden ice.

7. 2018 Red Sox: Boston has won four championships in the 20 years since they broke the Curse of the Bambino, but the 2018 Red Sox are far and away the best team of the four.  In fact, they're one of the best teams in recent baseball memory.  They lost on Opening Day then won 17 of their next 18 before getting no-hit in Oakland.  That was a small blip on the radar for a team that went a dominant 108-54

6. 2016-17 Warriors: Golden State set the NBA record with 73 wins in 2015-16.  But that Warriors team lost to LeBron in the Finals.  The following year, they won "only" 67 games, then went an absurd 15-1 in the playoffs!  This was Kevin Durant's first season with the Warriors, who joined Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson on the All*Star team.

5. 1984 49ers: I'm not sure enough people appreciate how good the 1984 49ers actually were.  I don't really know why that is, either.  They became the first team in NFL history to win 15 games and are one of just two 15-1 (or better) teams to actually win the Super Bowl too!  Their offense, led by Hall of Famer Joe Montana in perhaps his best season, was absurd.  San Francisco scored 475 points and allowed just 227.  Fun fact about this team: their only loss, in Week 7 against the Steelers, was only televised in the San Francisco and Pittsburgh markets because NBC was airing the Tigers' World Series-clinching Game 5 victory at the same time.  (You wanna talk great teams?  Those 1984 Tigers also belong in the conversation.)

4. 1985 Bears: A loss to the Dolphins (who else?) on a Monday night is all that separated the 1985 Bears from perfection.  Their defense gave up less than 200 points in the entire season and had a three-game stretch in November where they outscored Detroit, Dallas and Atlanta by a combined score of 104-3!  In the playoffs, they posted back-to-back shutouts against the Giants and Rams before obliterating the Patriots in the Super Bowl.  Simply put, they were one of the greatest teams and authors of one of the greatest seasons ever.

3. 1976-77 Canadiens: It was Montreal's record of 132 points that the Bruins broke.  The Canadiens have won a lot of Stanley Cups, but this is widely considered their best team.  In fact, it's widely considered the greatest team in NHL history.  They went 60-8-12 and only lost one home game all season (in October)!  They outscored their opponents 387-171!  The roster is a who's who of Hockey Hall of Famers.  Guy Lafleur, Yvan Cournoyer, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Bob Gainey, Ken Dryden.  To name just a few.

2. 1998 Yankees: One of the craziest things about the '98 Yankees is that they actually got off to a terrible start.  They opened the season on the West Coast and lost four of their first five games.  They sure made up for it the rest of the way!  Their 114 wins set a franchise and American League record (that would be broken three years later by the Mariners), and, if you include the postseason, their record was 125-50.  They led the Majors in scoring and the pitching staff allowed the fewest runs in baseball.  It felt like the Yankees were going to win every game that season.  And they just about did.  I can't believe it was 25 years ago!

1. 1995-96 Bulls: Michael Jordan came back from his little two-year baseball exodus at the end of the 1994-95 season.  Then, in 1995-96, when he was back with the Bulls first time, Chicago embarked on a magical journey that culminated with the start of their second three-peat.  They set the (since broken) NBA record for wins with 72.  They had the highest rated offense and highest rated defense.  They started 37-0 at home (and finished 39-2).  They went 13-1 in December and 14-0 in January.  They, simply put, might be the greatest basketball team ever assembled.  And the authors of arguably the best season, regular season and playoffs combined, of any team in the past 50 years.