2009 Stanley Cup Finals - Records

Records

The Red Wings attempted to become the first team to successfully defend a championship since they did it in 1998. The Red Wings were also the first defending Stanley Cup champions to reach the Finals since 2001, when the 2000 champions New Jersey Devils lost to the Colorado Avalanche.

The Penguins became the first team since the Edmonton Oilers in 1984 to win the Stanley Cup after having lost in the Finals the year before; it was also the first instance of a Stanley Cup Finals rematch since then. They were the first team in major professional sports to win a Game 7 of the championship round on the road since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball. They also became the third team to win a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals as the visitor, the first since the Montreal Canadiens in 1971 (the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1945 being the other).

Seeded 4th in the Eastern Conference, the Penguins became the lowest-seeded team to win the Cup since the 4th-seeded New Jersey Devils in 2000, and tied for 8th overall in the NHL, they became (along with the 1991 Penguins and 1995 Devils), the only teams in the post-1967 expansion era to finish outside the top 6 overall and win the Cup. The last team to win a Stanley Cup with fewer than 100 points in the season was the 1997 Detroit Red Wings, with 94.

The Penguins' Cup victory, coupled with that of the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII four months earlier, gave the city of Pittsburgh the distinction of being the only city to win a Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup in the same year. However, Detroit holds the distinction of being the first city to have NFL champions and NHL champions in the same city in the same year, 1952. The "City of Champions" gained multiple titles in the same year for the second time and first time in 30 years (the Pirates won the 1979 World Series in between the Steelers' victories in Super Bowl XIII in January 1979 and Super Bowl XIV in January 1980). It also gives the state of Pennsylvania three champions in the four major professional sports in a span of nine months, with the Philadelphia Phillies winning the World Series the previous October.

This was the second consecutive year that two US-based NHL teams competed for the championship, and the first time that two teams met in the Stanley Cup Finals in consecutive seasons since the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders did so in 1983 and 1984.

The first two games were played at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit on consecutive weekend nights—May 30 and 31—the first time that Finals games have been played on consecutive days since 1955.

Detroit's loss gave Mike Babcock the unfortunate distinction of being the first coach in NHL history to lose Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals with two different teams, a fate that Mike Keenan, the other coach in a Game 7 Finals with two different teams avoided. Although he was with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1987 when they lost to the Edmonton Oilers, he was with the New York Rangers when they won the Cup in 1994.

This was the last Stanley Cup Final played at Mellon Arena, which was closed after the following season. The Penguins moved to the Consol Energy Center for the 2010–11 season.