The 1938 Stanley Cup Finals was a best-of-five series between the Chicago Black Hawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Chicago won the series 3–1 to win their second Stanley Cup. With their record of 14–25–9, they possess as of 2022, the lowest regular season winning percentage (.291) of any championship team in the four major professional sports leagues, and are the only ones to do so with a losing record. They are also the Stanley Cup winning team with the lowest number of Hockey Hall of Fame members, with only one (Earl Seibert).

This would be the last best-of-five Stanley Cup Finals.

Paths to the Finals

Toronto defeated Boston Bruins in a best-of-five 3–0 to advance to the Finals. The Black Hawks had to play two best-of three series after narrowly reaching the postseason by two points (at the time, six of the eight teams made the postseason); the Black Hawks won a 2–1 upset against Montreal Canadiens and then won 2–1 against the New York Americans to advance to the Finals.

Game summaries

Chicago lost their regular goaltender, Mike Karakas, during the playoffs and started Alfie Moore in game one. League president Frank Calder ruled that Moore was ineligible, but allowed the victory. Paul Goodman played and lost game two. Karakas returned for games three and four wearing a steel toe in his skate to protect his foot.^{[citation needed]}

Chicago set a record with eight American players winning the Stanley Cup. Also set a record for attendance with 18,497 in game three. It was the second time in NHL history a team won the Stanley cup after starting three different goalies in the playoffs after the Detroit Red Wings accomplished the feet in the previous year, no Stanley Cup Champion would win the cup while starting three different goalies until the Penguins did it in 2016. It was the last time that the Hawks would win the Stanley Cup at home until 2015, and the last that a Chicago team would win a championship at Chicago Stadium until the Bulls won their second straight NBA championship in 1992.^{[citation needed]}

The NHL did not see fit to make sure that the Stanley Cup was in Chicago when they won the game and the series on April 12.^[1]

Stanley Cup engraving

The 1938 Stanley Cup was presented to Black Hawks captain Johnny Gottselig by NHL President Frank Calder following the Black Hawks 4–1 win over the Maple Leafs in game four.

The following Black Hawks players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup

1937–38 Chicago Black Hawks

Players

Stanley Cup engraving

• †Bill Stewart was the first American-born, and fifth NHL rookie coach to win the Stanley Cup. Bob Johnson would be the second American born to coach win the Stanley Cup 1991, 53 years later. He was also the first American-born Manager to win the Stanley Cup. The second was Brian Burke in 2007, 69 years later.
• When the cup was redesigned during the 1957–58 season Pete Palangio's name was engraved twice, firstly as PALAGO, secondly as PETE PALANGIO.
• *Six names were left off the cup when it was redone during the 1957–58 season. Four were on the original ring – Virgil Johnson, Paul Goodman, Alfie Moore(players), and Ed Froelich (Trainer). Players Hal Jackson, and Bert Connelly qualified to be engraved on the Stanley Cup, but their names were not included on any version of the 1938 Chicago team's engravings. There is room on the Stanley Cup for all six missing names.
• With this victory, Carl Voss became only the third player to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup and Canadian football's Grey Cup. He had previously been part of the Queen's Golden Gaels football team that won the 12th Grey Cup in 1924. (See Joe Miller, Lionel Conacher, Leo Dandurand, Norman Kwong & Wayne Gretzky also won the Grey Cup and Stanley Cup.)