1997 Stanley Cup Finals The Stanley Cup winners were the Detroit Red Wings , who swept the Philadelphia Flyers in four games and won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 42 years . Background . The Flyers arrived into the Finals having beaten their perennial rivals , the New York Rangers in a memorable five - game Eastern Conference Final series . Eric Lindros and Wayne Gretzky each recorded a hat trick in the set , but the size , strength and discipline of Philadelphia trumped the veteran savvy of the Blueshirts . Philadelphia rose to the top on the back of a 17 - game unbeaten streak in December and January , and despite losing the Atlantic Division title to New Jersey , had an easy time with Pittsburgh and Buffalo in the first two rounds . Detroit was the dark - horse in the Western Conference , the third - seed behind Dallas and Colorado . The Red Wings made their second trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in three years by besting the Avalanche in an often brutal six - game Western Conference Finals . Despite winning 62 games the year before , Detroit won only 38 in 1996 - 97 but got tougher with the addition of Brendan Shanahan and the departure of several players whom head coach Scotty Bowman blamed for their loss to Colorado a year prior . The Wings dispatched a fractured St . Louis Blues team and a surprising Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to reach the conference finals for the third straight season . The teams had never faced each other in the playoffs prior to the season ; even in the early days of expansion beyond the Original Six , the clubs never made the postseason when the NHL employed its cross - over format between East and West divisions . Nor had they met in the two year experiment to rank NHL playoff teams 1 through 16 in 1980 and 1981 . Detroit was looking for its first Cup win since 1955 , and to avenge the shocking four - game sweep to New Jersey in 1995 . Philadelphia was trying to win its first Cup since 1975 in its first Finals appearance in 10 years . The Series . Game 1 - - in Philadelphia took place exactly 10 years after the Flyers ' emotional Game 7 loss to the Edmonton Oilers in the 1987 Finals , and the omen was a bad one for the start of the 1997 series . Although Rod Brind ' Amour and John LeClair netted a goal each for the home team , Philly goaltender Ron Hextall allowed a bad 60 - foot goal to Steve Yzerman which broke a 2 - 2 tie and seemed to lift the Wings ' collective spirit in a 4 - 2 win . Game 2 - - Although Brind ' Amour scored a power - play goal for the second straight game which sent the Wachovia Center into a frenzy , Red Wing tough guy Joe Kocur , a late - season addition to the squad , scored a key goal which sent the Wings to another 4 - 2 victory and a 2 - 0 series lead heading back to Joe Louis Arena . Game 3 - - LeClair put the Flyers up 1 - 0 with a goal early in the first period , but the Flyers slowly unraveled . Third - line winger Martin Lapointe blew a shot past Hextall late in the period to give the Wings a 3 - 1 advantage , they tacked on two more in the second and added one in the third for an embarrassing 6 - 1 loss and three games to none series advantage . In his post - game comments , Flyers head coach Terry Murray was quoted as saying the team was " basically in a choking situation , " which many writers , broadcasters , fans as well as Flyers management took to mean Murray called out his own players as chokers . The manner in which they played compounded by the insurmountable series deficit along with the Wings ' seeming dominance in stretches of the first two games as well as most of Game 3 lent credence to the claim . However , with a decade in between , it is more likely Murray equated the 3 - 0 series hole as being stuck in a room without oxygen where it ' s hard to breathe , rather than an explicit implication of his players . Game 4 - - The Red Wings controlled the game from the get - go , forging ahead 1 - 0 after one period and employing the left - wing lock to keep the Flyers ' mix of big and speedy forwards at bay . Darren McCarty ' s second - period tally effectively sealed the deal . The burly checker faked out Flyers rookie defenseman Janne Niinimaa inside the blue line , swooped around him , then did a quick cutback in front of Hextall in his crease to slip the puck into the net . Eric Lindros would score his lone goal of the series with under 30 seconds to play , and the 2 - 1 win brought Detroit its first Stanley Cup in 42 seasons . Detroit goaltender Mike Vernon , who had been in net for the whole of the Wings ' aborted 1995 playoff run , and relegated to the bench the year before , earned vindication and his first Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP by holding Philadelphia to six goals in four games . Detroit Red Wings - 1997 Stanley Cup Champions . † Name not engraved on Stanley Cup , but included on Stanley Cup winning picture . † † - Hodson only played 6 games ( dressed for 23 games ) , but name was included on the Stanley Cup , because he spent majority of the season with Detroit . Post - Finals . The Red Wings decided to schedule the celebration into the summer . But it came to a tragic halt on June 13 , when two players , Viacheslav Fetisov , Vladimir Konstantinov , and their trainer Sergei Mnatsakanov were injured when their limousine crashed into the tree in suburban Birmingham . Fetisov was released from the hospital , but Konstantinov and Mnatsakanov were unable to move their legs while they were in a coma .