The Best Stanley Cup Finals That Never Happened

This past June, hockey fans were spoiled by one of the most entertaining Stanley Cup Finals in recent memory.

The Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers took viewers for a seven-game slugfest that never lacked drama and excitement.

The series provided star talent in Connor McDavid, Aleksander Barkov, Leon Draisaitl and Matthew Tkachuk, elite goaltending from Sergei Bobrovsky and Stuart Skinner, along with closely contested scores and a thrilling Game 7 to cap it all off.

But for all its exhilaration, it’ll never match the highs of this alternate NHL history.

That’s right, alternate history. As in, in another timeline, there was a world in which Kerry Fraser called Wayne Gretzky for high-sticking in Game 6 of the 1993 Western Conference final.

In that world, the Toronto Maple Leafs eliminated the Los Angeles Kings in six games, setting up a Stanley Cup Final date with their archrival Montreal Canadiens.

And in that world, the NHL’s two oldest and most storied franchises played for the Cup on the 100th anniversary of the trophy itself.

The storylines wouldn’t end there either. It would be Leafs head coach Pat Burns facing his former team. Quebecois icon Patrick Roy taking on the next great French goalie in Felix Potvin. Kingston, Ont. locals Doug Gilmour and Kirk Muller going head-to-head. There would even be a political layer with the Bloc Quebecois movement bringing even more intensity to the Toronto-Montreal rivalry.

Now that’s a Stanley Cup Final I want to see.

Here are three more Stanley Cup Finals that could’ve (and should’ve) been:

Is it not a shame that the Hawks and Pens, who collected six Cups between 2009 and 2017, never had to go through each other for the right to lift Lord Stanley?

During the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, it almost seemed like Chicago and Pittsburgh were on a collision course. They each finished first in their respective conferences with .750-plus points percentages and they burned their way through the first two rounds of the post-season.

If it weren’t for the 2012-13 Boston Bruins, who kept prime Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin entirely off the scoresheet in their Eastern Conference final sweep, we would’ve had that matchup.

Yes, the final we did get had its iconic moments, but there’s no doubt that a heavyweight tilt between the two best dynasties of the 21st century would’ve produced fireworks.

Watching the NHL’s two most dynamic duos in Crosby and Malkin, and Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane duke it out on the biggest stage would’ve been nothing short of a delight.

For those historians wanting to finally settle the debate of hockey’s greatest player, this matchup would’ve served as a nice piece of evidence for one of Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.

While the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 1991, they deserved a more worthy opponent than the underdog Minnesota North Stars.

Gretzky and the Kings spent the majority of the 1990-91 season razing the league, finishing third overall in the league standings. Had they not run into Gretzky’s old team and the defending Cup champs, the Oilers, the Kings would’ve had more than a fair shot at joining the Penguins in the final.

From there, your guess is as good as mine as to what would happen between the two greatest players to lace up the skates.

This series would go down as the ultimate ‘Clash of the Dynasties.’

The Isles immediately followed up the Habs’ four-peat from 1976 to 1979 with a four-peat of their own, yet the two clubs’ Cup runs never ran into the other.

So in this revisionist version of history, the upstart Islanders knocked off the New York Rangers in the 1979 division semifinal to challenge the Canadiens’ run of dominance.

While Montreal would hold a serious edge in experience, I’m betting New York’s budding core of Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier and Denis Potvin would give the old guard a run for their money to close out the 1970s.