The Stanley Cup: recent Finals, year by year.

Where things stand

The most recent Final ended on 14 June 2026, when the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in Game 6 against the Vegas Golden Knights. The 2026-27 NHL regular season began on 29 September 2026 and runs to 10 April 2027, with the playoffs after that. As of 21 October 2026 no team has a claim on the 2027 Cup. The NHL page explains how the 16 playoff teams are chosen.

Results by year

The Conn Smythe Trophy is the award for the most valuable player of the playoffs. It can go to a player on the losing team, as 2024 shows.

2026: Carolina Hurricanes

Carolina beat Vegas four games to two for its second Stanley Cup and its first since 2006. On the way, according to Wikipedia, Carolina swept Ottawa and Philadelphia and then beat Montreal in five games in the Eastern Conference Final. Vegas beat Utah and Anaheim in six games each, then swept the Colorado Avalanche, that season's Presidents' Trophy winners, in the Western Conference Final.

The game-by-game results below are as Wikipedia lists them; the Anchorage Daily News confirms Carolina's 4-2 win in Game 5, and other reports confirm Game 6.

In Game 6, Taylor Hall and Jackson Blake scored, Nikolaj Ehlers added an empty-net goal, and Brandon Bussi made 22 saves for his first career playoff shutout. Carter Hart was in goal for Vegas.

Carolina captain Jordan Staal won the Conn Smythe Trophy. Field Level Media reported that, at 37, he was the oldest player to win it, that six of his eight playoff goals came in the Final, and that scoring in five straight Final games tied a record that had stood for 70 years. His first Cup had come with Pittsburgh 17 years earlier, which Field Level Media calls the longest gap between Cups in NHL history.

2025: Florida Panthers

Florida met Edmonton in the Final for the second year running and won 4-2, finishing with a 5-1 win in Game 6 at home on 17 June 2025 for back-to-back Cups. Sam Reinhart scored four goals in that game. The Deseret News reported he was the first player with four in a Final game since Maurice Richard in 1957, and that Florida led for 255 minutes and 49 seconds of the series, which NHL.com called the most in Final history.

Sam Bennett won the Conn Smythe, the first Panther to do so. He led the playoffs with 15 goals, an NHL-record 13 of them on the road.

2024: Florida Panthers

Florida won its first Stanley Cup by beating Edmonton in seven games, after leading the series 3-0 and then losing Games 4, 5 and 6. Game 7, in Sunrise on 24 June 2024, ended 2-1. Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart scored for Florida, Mattias Janmark for Edmonton, and Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves. Paul Maurice was Florida's head coach.

Sources disagree on the winning goal. The Associated Press report carried by NBC Sports credits Reinhart's goal late in the second period, while a search summary of the Oilers' recap on NHL.com named Sam Bennett. We have not been able to read that recap directly.

Connor McDavid won the Conn Smythe despite losing the Final. He had 42 playoff points, and NBC Sports says he was the sixth player to win the award from the losing side. NBC Sports also noted that no Canada-based team had won the Cup since Montreal in 1993; the 2025 and 2026 champions were both U.S. teams.

2023: Vegas Golden Knights

Vegas beat Florida 4-1, winning Game 5 by 9-3 at T-Mobile Arena on 13 June 2023 for its first Stanley Cup. NBC Chicago notes that Vegas joined the NHL as an expansion team in 2017, reached the Final in its first season, 2017-18, and won the Cup in its sixth. Mark Stone scored a hat trick in Game 5, the first in a Final since Peter Forsberg in 1996. Jonathan Marchessault took the Conn Smythe with 13 goals and 12 assists, the first undrafted winner since Wayne Gretzky in 1988.

Where the Cup came from

The trophy is far older than the NHL. NHL.com says a letter from Lord Stanley of Preston, then Canada's Governor General, was read at a dinner on 18 March 1892 announcing that he would donate a challenge cup. It was first awarded in 1893, though the Hockey Hall of Fame, NHL.com and Wikipedia describe the first winner slightly differently. NHL.com says the Cup has been the NHL's championship trophy alone since the 1926-27 season, and Wikipedia records that no Cup was awarded in 1919, when the Final was abandoned during the influenza epidemic, or in 2005, when the season was lost to a lockout. The full story is on the history of the Stanley Cup.

Watching the Final

According to Wikipedia, the 2026 Final aired on ABC in the United States, streamed on ESPN+, and was shown in Canada on Sportsnet with a CBC simulcast and in French on TVA Sports. NHL.com says the 2027 Final will be shown exclusively on TNT in the United States and Sportsnet in Canada. More detail is on watching hockey.