The 1984 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's 1983–84 season, and the culmination of the 1984 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was contested between the Edmonton Oilers and the defending champion New York Islanders. The upstart Oilers won the best-of-seven series, four games to one, to win their first Stanley Cup, becoming the third post-1967 expansion team and first former World Hockey Association team to win the Cup, and also the first team based west of Chicago to win the Cup since the WCHL's Victoria Cougars became the last non-NHL team to win it in. In the previous year's Stanley Cup Finals, the Islanders had swept the Oilers in four straight games. The teams rematched in 1984, with the Islanders seeking their fifth consecutive Stanley Cup championship. It was the fifth straight Finals of teams that joined the NHL in 1967 or later., the Islanders' four consecutive Cup wins and their appearance in the 1984 Cup Finals is an NHL record of 19 consecutive playoff series wins that currently stands unbroken. The 1984 Finals was the second of eight consecutive Finals contested by a team from Alberta, and the first of five consecutive Finals to end with the Cup presentation on Alberta ice. The Oilers became the fastest-ever Canadian-based expansion team to win a major sports title by winning a title in only their fifth NHL season. The feat would be eclipsed in 2016 by the Ottawa Redblacks, who won the Grey Cup in their third CFL season.
NOTE: The 1984 Stanley Cup Finals were played in a 2–3–2 format, which the NBA Finals and World Series use, instead of the usual 2–2–1–1–1; however, the NHL would only use the format again the following season before going back to the 2–2–1–1–1 format for the 1986 Stanley Cup Finals. Grant Fuhrshut out the Islanders in the first game, on Long Island, with Kevin McClelland scoring the game's only goal, but the Islanders won game two 6–1. The series then shifted to Edmonton for three games. In game three, the Islanders had a 2–1 lead in the second period, but Mark Messier scored on an individual effort to tie the game. That changed the momentum in favor of the Oilers, and they proceeded to beat the Islanders 7–2. But the Oilers lost Fuhr for games four and five after the Islanders' Pat LaFontaine crashed into Fuhr on the forecheck during game three, and Fuhr was slow to get up. Andy Moog started games four and five. The Oilers won game four by the same score, with Wayne Gretzky scoring his first goal of the Finals. The Oilers then won game five by the score of 5–2 thanks to Gretzky's two first-period goals, and two Duane Sutter penalties. They became the first former WHA team, and the first team from Edmonton, to win the Stanley Cup. Mark Messier won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
