1917 Stanley Cup Final

Lore & Background

Seattle won the PCHA title with a 16–8 regular-season record. Montreal advanced by defeating the Ottawa Senators 7–6 in a two-game total-goals playoff. The Final was played at the Seattle Ice Arena, with games alternating between PCHA seven-man rules and NHA six-man rules. Bernie Morris scored 14 of Seattle's 23 total goals, including six in the 9–1 game-four victory. Goaltender Hap Holmes posted a 2.90 goals-against average. The series featured multiple fights between Roy Rickey and Billy Coutu. The Stanley Cup was presented by trustee William Foran, and the engraving read '1917 Seattle World's Champions defeated Canadians'—a misspelling of Canadiens.

Reader's Guide

The 1917 Stanley Cup Final marked a turning point in hockey history: it was the first time a U.S.-based team won the Cup, and the first Final held entirely in the United States. It was also the last Stanley Cup Final before the NHA reorganized into the NHL later in 1917. The series showcased the rivalry between the PCHA and NHA rule sets. Four Seattle players—Jack Walker, Frank Foyston, Hap Holmes, and Cully Wilson—had previously won the Cup with the 1914 Toronto Blueshirts. Pete Muldoon, at 29 years and nine months, remains the youngest coach or manager to win the Stanley Cup. The Seattle Kraken honored the Metropolitans with a banner on October 27, 2021, the first time the Canadiens played in Seattle since the abandoned 1919 Final.

Did You Know?

• Bernie Morris scored 14 of Seattle's 23 total goals in the series, including six in game four.
• The Stanley Cup engraving misspelled 'Canadiens' as 'Canadians'.
• Pete Muldoon was 30 years old, the youngest coach or manager to win the Cup.
• The Canadiens had not played a professional game in Seattle for 104 years until October 27, 2021.

The Penalty That Changed Everything

Late in the third period of Game Two, with Los Angeles holding a 2–1 lead and a 1–0 series advantage, Canadiens head coach Jacques Demers made a desperate call: he requested an on-ice measurement of Kings defenceman Marty McSorley's stick. The curve was deemed illegal, and McSorley was assessed a two-minute minor for illegal equipment. With Montreal facing the prospect of traveling to Los Angeles trailing two games to none, Demers pulled goaltender Patrick Roy to create a six-on-four advantage. Eric Desjardins capitalized, firing from the point to force the game into overtime. Just 51 seconds into the extra frame, Desjardins struck again to seal the victory. From that single infraction, the momentum never returned to Los Angeles. The Canadiens swept the final three games to claim their 24th championship, while the Kings suffered a fate that would haunt them for the remainder of the century — they would not win another postseason game until 2001.

A Gauntlet of Rivals and Upsets

Both franchises navigated treacherous playoff paths to reach the championship stage. Los Angeles, whose superstar Wayne Gretzky missed the first three months of the season with injury, stumbled between December and February before clawing back a postseason berth. They faced Canadian opponents in every round and lacked home-ice advantage throughout, ultimately dispatching Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto to earn their first-ever Finals appearance. Montreal's journey was equally dramatic. After dropping their first two games to provincial rivals Quebec, with star netminder Patrick Roy drawing sharp criticism from his hometown, the Canadiens answered by winning four straight to eliminate the Nordiques. They then swept Buffalo and took the opening three games against New York, matching an eleven-game winning streak previously shared by Chicago and Pittsburgh. The broader playoff landscape was reshaped by upsets: St. Louis swept Chicago, New York eliminated two-time defending champion Pittsburgh, and Buffalo knocked out Boston — the team that had beaten Montreal in the postseason for three consecutive years.

A Century of Firsts and Lasts

The 1993 championship carried extraordinary historical weight. It marked the centennial of the Stanley Cup's first awarding in 1893, and it was the first Finals series to tip off in June rather than May. For Los Angeles, it represented the first time a west-coast American franchise had reached the championship round since 1920, and the first appearance in the Finals in the Kings' 26-year franchise history. Montreal's 34th trip to the Final yielded their 24th Cup, but the roster also cemented a legacy that would never be replicated: the 1993 Canadiens remain the last championship team composed entirely of North American-born players, the last Canadian-based franchise to lift the trophy, and the last Canadian club outside Toronto to win a title in any of the four major North American professional leagues. It was also the final Stanley Cup series played inside the Montreal Forum and the last time Wayne Gretzky competed in a championship round.

The Long Silence After the Final Horn

The aftermath of that June 1993 series proved to be a defining watershed for both franchises. For Los Angeles, the loss in Game Two triggered a postseason drought that stretched across the entire remainder of the 20th century. They failed to qualify for the playoffs in five of the next seven seasons and were eliminated in the first round the other two times. Their next postseason victory would not arrive until 2001, against Detroit, and their next Finals appearance would not come until 2012, when they finally captured their first-ever Cup against New Jersey. Montreal's wait was even longer. After hoisting the trophy in 1993, the Canadiens did not return to the championship round until 2021, when they fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Nearly three decades passed between their last two Finals appearances, a gap that underscored just how rare and precious that 1993 triumph had truly been.