Western Conference (NHL) in the context of "Anaheim Ducks"

The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Wild compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at the Grand Casino Arena, and is owned by Craig Leipold. The Wild are affiliated with the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League (AHL) and the Iowa Heartlanders of the ECHL.

The Wild were founded on June 25, 1997, and began play in the 2000–01 season. The team was founded following the departure of the Minnesota North Stars, who were based in Minnesota from 1967 to 1993, when they relocated to Dallas, Texas, and became the Dallas Stars. The Wild made their first Stanley Cup playoffs appearance in 2003, making a surprise run to the Western Conference finals, but ultimately losing to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The team have appeared in the playoffs a total of 14 times, and have won one division championship, in 2008.

The 2002 Stanley Cup Final was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 2001–02 season, and the culmination of the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was contested by the Western Conference champion Detroit Red Wings and the Eastern Conference champion Carolina Hurricanes. It was Detroit's twenty-second appearance in the Finals, their previous appearance being a win in 1998. It was Carolina's first appearance in the Finals in franchise history. The Red Wings defeated the Hurricanes in five games to win their tenth Stanley Cup championship in franchise history. The Red Wings became the third team in NHL history to win 10 or more Stanley Cup titles, joining the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.

The Red Wings became the first team in NHL history to win the Cup after starting the playoffs with two losses at home. After losing the first two games in the Conference Quarterfinals to the Vancouver Canucks, the Red Wings won 16 of their next 21 games en route to win their third Cup since 1997 for coach Scotty Bowman. Bowman won his ninth Cup as a head coach (he had previously won it in that capacity with the Montreal Canadiens in 1973, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979, with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1992, and with Detroit in 1997 and 1998), surpassing the mark he held jointly with Montreal coach Toe Blake. It was the last Detroit championship to feature members of the Russian Five, as Sergei Fedorov and Igor Larionov were still with the team.

The 2008 Stanley Cup Final was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 2007–08 season, and the culmination of the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs. It was contested between the Western Conference champion Detroit Red Wings and the Eastern Conference champion Pittsburgh Penguins. This was Detroit's 23rd appearance in the Finals, and its first since winning the Cup in 2002. This was Pittsburgh's third appearance in the Finals, and its first since winning consecutive Cup championships in 1991 and 1992. The Red Wings defeated the Penguins in six games to win their eleventh Stanley Cup title. Detroit's Henrik Zetterberg was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs. As of 2025, this is the most recent major professional sports championship won by a Detroit-based team.

This was also the first Cup Finals between two United States–based NHL teams since 2003.

The Vancouver Canucks are a professional ice hockey team based in Vancouver. The Canucks compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Rogers Arena. Adam Foote is the head coach, Jim Rutherford serves as the president of hockey operations and Patrik Allvin serves as the general manager.

The Canucks joined the league in 1970 as an expansion team along with the Buffalo Sabres. The team has advanced to the Stanley Cup Final three times, losing to the New York Islanders in 1982, the New York Rangers in 1994 and the Boston Bruins in 2011. They have won the Presidents' Trophy in back-to-back seasons as the team with the league's best regular season record in both the 2010–11 and 2011–12 seasons. The Canucks have won three division titles as a member of the Smythe Division from 1974 to 1993, seven titles as a member of the Northwest Division from 1998 to 2013, and one title as a member of the Pacific Division in 2024. The Canucks, along with the Sabres, are the two oldest teams in the NHL to have never won the Stanley Cup.

The National Hockey League's Central Division was formed in 1993 as part of the Western Conference in a league realignment. Its predecessor was the Norris Division, and it's also one of two successors to the Northwest Division. The Chicago Blackhawks have been a member of the Central Division in all of its seasons since the original 1993 realignment. The Arizona Coyotes (as the original Winnipeg Jets), Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues were also original members of the division, but were realigned to a different division for a while before returning; both the Coyotes and Stars were moved to the Pacific Division in 1998 (the Stars moved back to the Central in 2013, and the Coyotes followed in 2021), while the Blues were moved to the West Division during the temporary 2020–21 realignment. Three of its teams—the Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, and Winnipeg Jets (as the Atlanta Thrashers)—joined the NHL during a league expansion phase between 1998 and 2000. The fourth team in that three-year expansion period, the Columbus Blue Jackets, was once a member of the Central Division, but moved to the Metropolitan Division after the 2013 realignment.

After the addition of the Vegas Golden Knights to the Pacific Division in 2017, the Central Division was the only division in the NHL without eight teams. This situation remained in effect until the 2020–21 NHL season, when the COVID-19 pandemic compelled a radical re-alignment of the divisions, including the temporary abolition of the Eastern and Western conferences. The Central Division was the only existing division retained for the 2020–21 NHL season. Only three of the eight Central Division teams for 2020–21 were members of the division in the previous season.

The Dallas Stars are a professional ice hockey team based in Dallas. The Stars compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The Stars played in Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas from 1993 to 2001, when they moved into the American Airlines Center in Dallas's nearby Victory Park neighborhood, an arena they share with the Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

The Stars were founded during the 1967 NHL expansion as the Minnesota North Stars, based in Bloomington, Minnesota. Before the 1978–79 NHL season, the team merged with the Cleveland Barons after the league granted them permission due to each team's respective financial struggles. The franchise relocated to Dallas for the 1993–94 NHL season and was renamed the Dallas Stars.

The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The Kings compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference. The team was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent Cooke was awarded an NHL expansion franchise for Los Angeles on February 9, 1966, becoming one of the six teams that began play as part of the 1967 NHL expansion. The team plays its home games at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles, their home since the start of the 1999–2000 season. Prior to that, the Kings played for 32 years at the Forum in Inglewood, California, a suburb of the Greater Los Angeles area.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the Kings had many years marked by impressive play in the regular season only to be washed out by early playoff exits. Their highlights in those years included the strong goaltending of Rogie Vachon, and the "Triple Crown Line" of Charlie Simmer, Dave Taylor and Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne, who had a famous upset of the rising Edmonton Oilers in a 1982 playoff game known as the Miracle on Manchester. In 1988, the Kings traded with the Oilers to get their captain Wayne Gretzky, leading to a successful phase of the franchise that raised hockey's popularity in Los Angeles, and helped elevate the sport's profile in the American Sun Belt region. Gretzky, fellow Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille, and defenseman Rob Blake led the Kings to the franchise's sole division title in 1990–91, and the Kings' first Stanley Cup Final appearance in 1993, where they lost to the Montreal Canadiens.