When the St. Louis Blues defeated the Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals in Boston on Wednesday night, it was the team’s first title. After the 4-1 win, Blues fans celebrated a championship they had been waiting for since coming into the N.H.L. in 1967. A year ago, the Washington Capitals, in the league since 1974, also lifted the Cup for the first time.

But joy in St. Louis and Washington has brought little consolation to fans of teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Vancouver Canucks and the Buffalo Sabres, who could only sigh and add another year to their own long championship droughts.

When the Leafs last won the Cup, in 1967, players and fans must have foreseen good things ahead. The team had won its fourth championship in six seasons and had 13 Cups in all, dating to 1918, when the team was so new it did not yet have a nickname. Since then, however, the Maple Leafs have not earned a return to the finals.

Though their droughts are a little shorter, the Canucks and the Sabres cannot look back at a glorious past; neither team has won a championship since joining the league in 1970.