Not to look too far ahead, but it appears the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins will meet in a rematch of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals.
The Penguins have a three games to none lead over Carolina in the East and Detroit is up 3-1 over Chicago in the West.
So this got us to thinking – How common are rematches in the Stanley Cup Finals? Not common at all.
In the expansion era (post-1967), there have been only three Finals rematches, and, not surprisingly, two of them involved the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs beat the St. Louis Blues in the 1968-69 Finals and the Boston Bruins in the 1977-78 Finals.
The most recent Finals rematch took place in 1984, when the Edmonton Oilers ended the New York Islanders’ four-year reign as Cup champions. Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers avenged a four-game sweep to the Islanders the season before.
Rematches were a bit more common in the pre-expansion era since there were only six teams in the league. There were five cases in which teams met in the Finals in consecutive seasons. Each time, the Cup was won by the team that captured it the previous season.
The rematches in the pre-expasion era:
1949 – Toronto defeats Detroit
1955 – Detroit defeats Montreal
1958 – Montreal defeats Boston
1960 – Montreal defeats Toronto
1964 – Toronto defeats Detroit.
If Detroit and Pittsburgh do meet up again, history will be on the Red Wings’ side.
In NHL history, defending Stanley Cup champions are 7-1 in Finals rematches. The 1984 Islanders were the first – and only – defending champion to lose a Finals repeat.
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