Who Were The Last Back-to-Back Champions in the NHL?

The Florida Panthers have taken a commanding 3-2 lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals. BetMGM has them at -350 to win the series, and become the first team in four years to win back-to-back Stanley Cups. 

Don’t take this article as an obituary for the Oilers. Their performance in last year’s Finals shows that they shouldn’t be counted out just yet. 

But it’s still important to take stock of the historic nature of what may be around the corner for the Panthers. In the expansion era of the NHL, only eight teams have won back-to-back titles.

Here’s a look at the last five teams to do so. 

2021 Tampa Bay Lightning

The 2021 Lightning are the most recent team to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. 

These two Stanley Cup victories are famous, or infamous, because they came during two COVID-19-affected seasons. 

In 2020, Tampa defeated the Dallas Stars in a six-game Stanley Cup Finals that took place in September, with no fans in attendance, in Edmonton’s Rogers Place. Not exactly the most traditional of circumstances. 

In 2021, the Lightning won again, this time against the Montreal Canadiens and in five games. The still ongoing pandemic also impacted this series. The Canadian government allowed Montreal’s Bell Centre to have only 3,500 fans in attendance. Meanwhile, in Florida, Tampa’s Amalie Arena was allowed to be at 85% capacity for their home games. 

Some argue that these titles should have an asterisk due to the COVID-19 impact, but someone had to win the Stanley Cup those years. I have a less extreme take on this bubble playoffs because it doesn’t have anything to do with LeBron James. 

Seven of the players on Tampa’s 2021 roster are still with the team, including much of the core of that championship run. 

The Lightning have had their opportunities again in the playoffs but have been stymied mainly by the emergence of their in-state rivals.  

2017 Pittsburgh Penguins

The 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Nashville Predators in six games, following their victory over the San Jose Sharks the previous year, also in six games. In both series, Sidney Crosby won the Conn Smythe trophy. They were the first team in almost 20 years to repeat as champions.

It was the third title for Crosby and his longtime co-stars Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang, cementing their legacy as a ‘kind of’ dynasty in the NHL. 

Since this title in 2017, not much has happened for the Penguins. The following year, the Penguins were defeated by Crosby’s rival, Alexander Ovechkin, and the Washington Capitals in the second round. 

They’ve remained a consistently good team, at one point holding the active record for most consecutive playoff appearances. 

Crosby, Malkin, and Letang are all still playing for Pittsburgh, but the window of contention for another Stanley Cup seems like it’s come and gone. 

1998 Detroit Red Wings

The late-90s Red Wings teams were stacked, and they showed it by winning back-to-back Stanley Cup titles in 1997, against the Flyers, and 1998, against the Capitals, both times via sweeps, becoming the fourth and most recent team to do so. 

This Detroit Cup team boasted seven future Hall of Famers and a future Hall of Fame coach in Scotty Bowman. 

They were led by Captain Steve Yzerman, who won the Conn Smythe. 

The Red Wings’ drive to repeat was fueled by a tragic accident that took place less than a week after their win in 1997, where defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov suffered a brain injury in a limousine crash. 

Memorably, Detroit honored Konstantinov by bringing him out onto the ice in a wheelchair following their 1998 win, placing the Stanley Cup in his lap, and taking him on a victory lap around the ice. 

The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup again four years later and again in 2008. 

1992 Pittsburgh Penguins

The 1992 Penguins team was another star-studded roster of hockey legends, with six Hall of Famers, including Mario Lemieux and another future Hall of Famer, Jaromir Jagr, who, at 53 years old, is still playing professional hockey.

Pittsburgh won in 1992 by sweeping the Chicago Blackhawks. In 1991, they beat the Minnesota North Stars in six games. 

Lemieux won the Conn Smythe in both playoff runs. In 1992, he joined the team late, having missed some of the regular season and postseason. In only 15 games played in the postseason, he had 34 points, 16 goals and 18 assists, and was a +6.

Overall, the Penguins scored 95 goals in their 21 postseason games, establishing themselves as an offensive juggernaut. 

They were favored to win a third-straight title in 1993, but were upset in the second round by the Islanders. It wasn’t until 2009, when the Crosby era took hold, that the Penguins won the Stanley Cup again. 

1988 Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers in 1988 were the final incarnation of the dynastic Gretzky era, which won four titles in five years. Edmonton had a stellar 16-2 record in the postseason overall, basically sleepwalking their way to another Stanley Cup win. 

In 1988, their win was a “sweep” against the Bruins — more details on those quotes later — while in 1987, they won against the Flyers in seven games.

It was arguably the Great One at his apex. He had 43 points in the playoffs with 12 goals and 31 assists. 

Only a few months later, Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles, and he’d never win the Stanley Cup again. 

The 1988 Finals are also famous because of the ‘fog game’ in Game 4, where the power went out in the Boston Garden. The NHL ruled that the game would be essentially voided and replayed in Edmonton, giving the Oilers an extra home game. They won the series, technically, in four games, but they played five games.

In 1990, the two teams met again, and Edmonton, now without Gretzky, won in five games.