When the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins met in the 2009 Stanley Cup Final, there were a lot of grizzled hockey men with a lot of Stanley Cup Final experience buzzing around the ice. The two rosters combined for 315 previous Stanley Cup Final games played, or about seven games played per skater.
This made sense: The two teams met in the previous Stanley Cup Final, and Detroit’s roster featured five players1 who had played for its 2002 Cup-winning team — four of whom,2 remarkably enough, also played for its Cup-winning team in 1998.