The Detroit Red Wings entered the Finals after winning the Presidents' Trophy as the team that had the best record during the regular season.

Led by forwards Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, and Johan Franzen, Detroit scored 55 goals in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

With struggling goaltender Dominik Hasek being replaced mid-series by Chris Osgood, the Red Wings defeated their division rival Nashville Predators in the Western Conference quarterfinals, in six games.

The Red Wings then defeated the Dallas Stars in six games to win their fifth Clarence S. Campbell Bowl in franchise history.

The Pittsburgh Penguins entered the championship series after winning the Atlantic Division and earning the second-best regular season record in the Eastern Conference.

The 2008 Stanley Cup Finals marked the first time that the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins met in postseason play, and the first time since the 1909 World Series that professional sports teams from Detroit and Pittsburgh met in a postseason series or game.

Chris Osgood recorded his second shutout of the playoffs, to give the Red Wings a 4–0 victory in game one.

[6] Detroit's Brad Stuart scored the first goal of the game 6:55 into the first period, on a slap shot, with an assist from Valtteri Filppula.

[7] Pittsburgh continued to shuffle their lineup by replacing defenceman Kris Letang with veteran Darryl Sydor,[8] but going back to the top line combinations from game one.

Penguins captain Sidney Crosby scored the team's first goal of the series late in the first period, with an assist from Marian Hossa.

Mikael Samuelsson scored a second goal for the Red Wings, with assists from Brad Stuart and Valtteri Filppula.

[9] Jiri Hudler's game-winning goal at 2:26 of the third period broke a 1–1 tie, and the Red Wings killed off a Penguins 1:26 5-on-3 advantage midway through the final period to help preserve the victory, thanks in large part to a terrific defensive play by Henrik Zetterberg on Sidney Crosby, preventing what would have been a tap-in goal when he tied up Crosby's stick at the front of the net.

The goal marked only the second time in NHL history that a team avoided elimination in the Finals by scoring in the last minute of the third period.

The goal was assisted by defenceman Sergei Gonchar, who was playing his first shift in forty minutes as a result of an injury, and Evgeni Malkin, who got his first point of the Finals.

[11] Pittsburgh's Ryan Malone was scheduled to have X-rays on June 3, after being hit in the face with the puck in game five, but was expected to play.

[12] The Red Wings took a 2–0 lead in the second period in game six en route to a 3–2 victory to clinch the Stanley Cup.

Marian Hossa scored a power play goal (in addition to the Penguins pulling Fleury for an extra attacker and the Red Wings' Andreas Lilja having lost his stick as a result of Malone knocking it out of his hands) at 18:33 of the third period to cut the lead to 3–2, but the Penguins, despite a shot by Sidney Crosby and shot off rebound by Hossa in the final seconds, could not tie the game before time ran out.

Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson, and Zetterberg had previously won the other two components with the Sweden national team in 2006 at that year's Olympics and World Championships.

[17] On the CBC in Canada, this was the last Stanley Cup Finals that Bob Cole served as the play-by-play announcer for, as Jim Hughson took over the following year.