1930 Stanley Cup Final

Lore & Background

The defending champion Boston Bruins had an outstanding season, posting a record of 38–5–1, which translates to an .875 winning percentage, the best in NHL history. The team did not lose two games in a row all season until being swept by the Canadiens. This prompted a change the following year to a best-of-five Finals format.

Reader's Guide

The 1930 Stanley Cup Final is notable for the Montreal Canadiens' sweep of the Boston Bruins, who had dominated the regular season with the best winning percentage in NHL history. The Canadiens had lost all four regular-season meetings with the Bruins, making their victory a significant upset. Captain Sylvio Mantha scored in both final games. Game one saw the Bruins play below their usual form, and George Hainsworth recorded a shutout. In game two, Howie Morenz scored the winning goal at 17:50 of the second period. The series loss was the first time all year the Bruins lost two consecutive games. This outcome led to the NHL changing the Finals format to a best-of-five series the following year. The Stanley Cup engraving for 1930 included the date, day, game number, location, and score for each playoff game, a practice that continued for several years.

Did You Know?

• The Bruins had the best regular-season winning percentage in NHL history (.875) but were swept in the Finals.
• The Canadiens had lost all four regular-season games against the Bruins before winning the series.
• Captain Sylvio Mantha scored in both games of the Finals.
• The series loss prompted the NHL to change the Finals format to best-of-five the following year.

The Illegal Stick That Changed Everything

The defining moment of the 1993 Stanley Cup Final arrived not through a spectacular save or a thunderous slap shot, but through a measurement of a stick's curve. 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 demanded that officials inspect Kings defenceman Marty McSorley's equipment. The stick was ruled illegal, and McSorley was assessed a two-minute minor penalty. Facing the prospect of trailing 2–0 in the series heading to Los Angeles, Demers made the bold call to pull goaltender Patrick Roy, creating a six-on-four advantage. Eric Desjardins capitalized, scoring from the blue line to force overtime, then added his third goal of the game just 51 seconds into the extra period. From that single penalty call, the momentum shifted irrevocably. Montreal would go on to win the next three games and claim the championship, while Los Angeles would never recover.

A Gauntlet of Upsets

The road to the 1993 Finals was paved with shock results that reshaped both conferences. In the Campbell Conference, the Chicago Blackhawks were swept by their crosstown rivals the St. Louis Blues in the division semifinals, while the two-time defending champions and top regular-season team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, were eliminated by the New York Islanders in the Patrick Division Finals. The Boston Bruins, who had knocked Montreal out of the playoffs three consecutive years, were themselves swept by the Buffalo Sabres. On the West Coast, the Edmonton Oilers—Los Angeles' perennial playoff nemesis—failed to make the postseason for the first time since joining the NHL in 1979. Los Angeles, meanwhile, overcame a long injury absence for Wayne Gretzky, who missed October through January, and became the only team to face Canadian opponents in every playoff round. Montreal, after losing their first two games to Quebec and facing trade calls for Patrick Roy, responded with an 11-game winning streak that tied the record set by Chicago and Pittsburgh the previous year.

A Century of History and a Lasting First

The 1993 Stanley Cup Final carried extraordinary historical weight. It marked the 100th anniversary of the Cup's first awarding in 1893, and it was the first championship series to begin in June rather than May. For Los Angeles, it represented the first appearance in the Finals in the franchise's 26-year history and the first time a west coast United States team had reached the championship since 1920. For Montreal, it was their 34th Finals appearance and their first since 1989. The Canadiens' victory gave them their 24th Cup, but its significance extends far beyond the trophy. To this day, the 1993 roster remains the last championship team composed entirely of North American-born players. Montreal is also the most recent Canadian-based franchise to hoist the Cup, and the last Canadian team outside Toronto to win a title in any of the four major North American professional sports leagues. The series was also the final Stanley Cup Final played at the Montreal Forum and the last in which Wayne Gretzky competed.

The Long Shadow of a Single Penalty

The aftermath of that illegal-stick penalty in game two cast a shadow that stretched across decades. In the years following that call, Los Angeles could not claim a single postseason victory for the rest of the 20th century. They dropped the final three games of the 1993 series, failed to earn a playoff berth in five of the next seven campaigns, and were eliminated in the opening round the other two times. Their next playoff win did not come until 2001, against the Detroit Red Wings. The franchise would not return to the Stanley Cup Final until 2012, when they finally defeated the New Jersey Devils to claim their first championship. Montreal's trajectory was equally dramatic in its own way: after winning in 1993, the Canadiens did not appear in another Stanley Cup Final until 2021, when they fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning. A single two-minute minor penalty thus became the fulcrum around which two franchises' fates turned for the better part of a generation.