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When the Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday, they became the fourth team in the past 30 years to win back-to-back Cup titles.

They joined the Detroit Red Wings (1997, ’98), Pittsburgh Penguins (2016, ’17) and Tampa Bay Lightning (2020, ’21) as repeat champs in that span.

But which one stands above the rest? That’s the question we asked a panel of NHL.com writers and editors. Here are their responses:

Detroit Red Wings

This really isn’t a fair fight. The Panthers, Lightning and Penguins played in the NHL salary cap era. The Red Wings didn’t. You could argue playing in the cap era made it tougher because of parity. But if you’re asking which team is best, straight up, it’s Detroit. Florida, Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh each will have its share of Hockey Hall of Famers, but Detroit could stack its roster in a way the others couldn’t. Look at the list of Hall of Famers who played for the Red Wings then: Sergei Fedorov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Igor Larionov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Larry Murphy, Brendan Shanahan, Mike Vernon and Steve Yzerman. Vladimir Konstantinov might have made the Hall too if not for the limousine accident that ended his career after the 1997 victory. The Red Wings were coached by the greatest coach in NHL history, Scotty Bowman, who was already in the Hall of Fame at the time. They also had legendary role players on the “Grind Line”: Kris Draper, Joey Kocur, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty. It’s no coincidence that the last team to sweep the Cup Final was the 1998 Red Wings, who did it against the Washington Capitals. The last team before that? The 1997 Red Wings, who did it against the Philadelphia Flyers. -- Nicholas J. Cotsonika, columnist

Fedorov. Yzerman. Lidstrom. Shanahan. Murphy. Larionov. Fetisov. They're all in the Hockey Hall of Fame. They all played at least 40 games across the Red Wings' back-to-back Stanley Cup runs. Mike Vernon is in the Hall of Fame. He was Detroit's goalie in 1997. Chris Osgood could be and maybe should be a Hall of Famer. He was the Red Wings' goalie in 1998. Scotty Bowman was the coach. He's the greatest coach of all time. The Panthers aren't far off, but they don't quite equal what the Red Wings had in those years. An argument for the Panthers is they had to defeat the same team twice in the Stanley Cup Final. It's legit, especially when you consider that team, the Edmonton Oilers, has the game's best player in Connor McDavid and another top-five player in Leon Draisaitl. But to get to the Stanley Cup Final the Red Wings had to knock off the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in 1997 in the Western Conference Final. That team had Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy. In 1998, they got past the Dallas Stars in the conference final. That team had Mike Modano, Sergei Zubov and Ed Belfour. It won the Stanley Cup in 1999. I could argue the Avalanche and Stars of those years were better than the Oilers of the past two seasons. It's a different era and game, and the fact that it's way closer than I ever thought it could be is a testament to Florida's greatness. But it's Detroit. -- Dan Rosen, senior writer

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Why are the 1997-98 back-to-back champion Red Wings the best of this group? Because they swept both Stanley Cup Finals, an efficient disposal of both the Philadelphia Flyers, then the Washington Capitals. Nick makes a great point regarding the number of Hall of Famers Detroit featured at this time, Hockeytown legends like Yzerman, Lidstrom, Shanahan, Fedorov -- the list seemingly goes on and on. To be blunt, they crushed teams during this two-season run. They went 8-0 in the consecutive Finals, outscoring the opposition 29-13. They went cumulatively 32-10 in Stanley Cup Playoff series over these two seasons. They had the ruthless Bowman as coach. Teams despised coming into Joe Louis Arena, one of the noisiest rinks in the League, where victories were signified by octopi being chucked onto the ice. Dominance to the core. -- Mike Zeisberger, staff writer

Florida Panthers

OK, weighing one Stanley Cup-winning team against others is definitely difficult, but I’m going with the Panthers here. This team is just something else. The way they play defense is the most noticeable part of their game to me. For two straight seasons they’ve had to go through one of the most formidable, most productive teams in order to win the Cup. They’ve had to go against the best player in the world in McDavid and have done a tremendous job of containing him, especially this year. McDavid, who won the Conn Smythe as the most valuable player of the playoffs last season, had one goal in six Cup Final games against the Panthers in this series. Oh, and they’ve been to the Final three straight seasons, winning the past two. Three straight seasons of 82 games and then four rounds of the postseason? That’s a heck of a lot of hockey and that’s where their depth pays off. General manager Bill Zito has made all the right moves in making these Panthers an incredible force, and they get my vote for the best team to win back-to-back titles. -- Tracey Myers, staff writer

Maybe it’s recency bias, but I’m with Tracey on this. What the Panthers did was more difficult than what any of the other repeat Stanley Cup champions accomplished. The Lightning also went to three consecutive Cup Finals, but they won the first two and appeared exhausted by the time they got to the third Final in 2022 and lost to the Avalanche. Florida lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 Cup Final, then regrouped and became the first team since the Penguins in 2009 to win the Cup the season after losing in the championship round. Then, when almost everyone (including me) expected them to run out of gas this season, when they had an NHL-high eight players play in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, they somehow got stronger when the playoffs began and won again. They’ve played 314 games the past three seasons -- 246 in the regular season and 68 in the playoffs -- a stretch unlike what any of the other recent repeat Cup winners had to endure. (The Lightning had two shortened seasons when they won their back-to-back titles). That makes what Florida has done the most impressive. -- Tom Gulitti, senior writer

EDM@FLA, SCF Gm6: Barkov lifts the Cup, then hands it off to Schmidt

Pittsburgh Penguins

There is something to be said about being expected to win and doing it. When Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the Penguins reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2016 against the San Jose Sharks and in 2017 against the Nashville Predators, they were the heavy favorites and delivered. Yes, both series went six games, but the Penguins were never not in control, winning the first two games of each. But unlike the Lightning and Panthers, they didn’t have a dominant goalie, and unlike the Red Wings, they didn’t have a star-studded lineup. Instead, they won back-to-back titles with Matt Murray in goal in the Final and with players like Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin, Phil Kessel and Bryan Rust pitching in big time. They were led by their stars, but they showed the teamwork to win back-to-back titles, which, to me, is the mark of a great team. -- Bill Price, Editor-in-Chief

Tampa Bay Lightning

I believe if you were able to pit the back-to-back champion Lightning against these Panthers, the Lightning would come out on top. The Panthers have a great team, but the Lightning were better and would also defeat the Penguins’ and Red Wings’ repeat Cup teams. Tampa Bay had incredible high-end talent with Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, and also had the best goalie in Andrei Vasilevskiy to go with a strong supporting cast. In 2020, Tampa Bay essentially won the Stanley Cup without Stamkos, who could only play one postseason game because of injury and scored a goal in it. With a healthy Stamkos, I don’t think there is a question of who is better. Fortunately, I had the unique experience of watching the Lightning through the final two rounds of the 2020 playoffs in the COVID-19 bubble at Rogers Place in Edmonton and was impressed with what I saw. Florida was impressive as well through its two playoff runs but relied a little too much on goalie Sergei Bobrovsky at times, hiding deficiencies in its game. If Edmonton had more consistent goaltending the past two seasons, things could have been different in at least one of the Finals. There were few weaknesses in the Lightning championship teams, and rarely did they get outplayed. -- Derek Van Diest, staff writer

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