Stanley Cup Finals that run six or seven games go down in lore as some of hockey’s greatest series. The Florida Panthers had to play 13 total games with the Edmonton Oilers to win two consecutive Stanley Cup Finals in 2024 and 2025. The Panthers’ in-state rival, Tampa Bay Lightning, came back from a 0-1 series deficit to defeat Dallas in six games and lift the trophy in 2020. The St. Louis Blues defeated the Boston Bruins in a Game 7 of the final round the previous year.

But don’t overlook 4-0 sweeps as a part of Stanley Cup Finals legend. Wayne Gretzky’s last Cup with the Edmonton Oilers came in a 1988 sweep of the Bruins. Boston’s Bobby Orr previously scored his iconic “flying” goal to finish off the upstart Blues in the Bruins’ championship sweep of 1970.

No NHL team has swept the Stanley Cup Finals since 1998, showing how difficult it is for even a dynasty to pull off the feat. Let’s glance at four of the NHL’s most recent teams who didn’t lose once in the finals.

St. Louis Blues Go Straight to the Top by 1970… Orr Not

The NHL’s blunder of the 1960s was to put expansion teams in their own playoff bracket. It created a lopsided scenario. The St. Louis Blues reached the climactic series three straight times from 1968 to 1970 without winning a single game, even with the legendary Scotty Bowman as their coach. Boston was the beneficiary of the Blues’ finals bid of 1969-70, sweeping St. Louis 4-0 to win the Bruins’ first title in 12 years. 

It may have been one-sided, but it was still iconic. Orr’s aerial celebration of his winning goal in Game 4 is known as one of the National Hockey League’s greatest images. Some fans rank it as the greatest hockey photo of all time, but watching the video illustrates Orr’s grace in a way that photos can only suggest. 

Gretzky’s Gang Learns a Lesson Against Islanders

The New York Islanders stampeded to a Stanley Cup title in Gretzky and Edmonton’s first of many trips to the final round in 1983. The iconic goaltender Billy Smith stopped all but six Edmonton shots in a lopsided sweep that included a winning goal from Mike Bossy and 12 combined points for Isles siblings Duane and Brent Sutter. The Islanders’ win capped off a dynasty run of four consecutive crowns under head coach Al Arbour.

Gretzky has said that the Oilers were embarrassed to find the Islanders far more exhausted than they were after Game 4. The legendary group took the lesson to heart, beginning their own dynasty trek in 1984.

Devils Blast Door Open in 1995 Stanley Cup 

The 1990s were a time for newcomers in the Stanley Cup Finals. The New Jersey Devils, chided by Gretzky himself as a “Mickey Mouse” organization in the previous decade, reached the ultimate winner’s circle for the first time in 1995 behind goaltender Martin Brodeur’s mastery and a trapping defensive scheme that put opponents to sleep. Opponents only beat New Jersey four times across four rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

The Devils demolished the fabled Detroit Red Wings of the 1990s in four straight games to sweep the 1995 Stanley Cup Final. Detroit, favored by Las Vegas sportsbooks to win the series, only pierced Brodeur seven combined times, and fell by 5-2 scores in Game 3 and Game 4. Neal Broten scored the winning goal in Game 4, his third of the series, in the second period. Broten’s linemate Claude Lemieux was selected as the NHL Playoff MVP.

Detroit Sweep Twice: The NHL’s Last Dynasty of the 20th Century

The Red Wings skated another season without winning a Stanley Cup Finals contest, getting worn down by Gretzky’s St. Louis Blues and then defeated by Joe Sakic’s Colorado Avalanche in 1996. But by the spring of 1997, the Detroit Red Wings were too terrific to deny a championship. The Red Wings checked even tighter than the Devils of two years prior in a sweep of the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, allowing merely six goals to the opposing Philadelphia Flyers. Detroit’s netminder Mike Vernon helmed a 6-1 blowout in Game 3. 

Once again, a focus on goalies shrouded an all-time display of skill on the champions’ behalf. Detroit snipers Sergei Fedorov and Steve Yzerman combined for seven goals in the Red Wings’ sweep of the Flyers. Fedorov’s jersey was retired in the Red Wings’ rafters, alongside Steve Yzerman’s, in 2026.

Then it was time for an encore in 1998. While the Red Wings would become the most recent NHL team to sweep back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, the next year’s clash with the Washington Capitals was wholly unlike the previous sweep over the Flyers. The 1998 semifinal showdown was a test of survival in which Game 1, Game 2, and Game 3 were decided by one goal. Washington’s Olaf Kolzig iced 55 of 60 Detroit shots in Game 2.

No team has since swept a Stanley Cup Finals series once, let alone twice in a row. Will the deeper talent pool of today’s NHL prevent decades’ worth of champions from matching Detroit’s 8-0 run? Unless another combination like Fedorov, Yzerman, and Shanahan appears, the NHL’s title tilt will tend to be a close call.