The Detroit Red Wings won their 10th Stanley Cup championship as they finally ended the challenge of the California Hurricanes, taking an unassailable 4-1 lead in the series.

The victory was a landmark for Scotty Bowman, as he celebrated a record-breaking ninth Stanley triumph - and he announced his retirement immediately after the game.

"It's my last game as a coach," he said on the ice after the Red Wings won their third Cup in six years.

Bowman, 68, won five Cups with Montreal and one with Pittsburgh.

"I haven't worked out what I'll be doing. I won't be doing a lot!"

He added: "I was fortunate to be with a team (Detroit) that spent quite a bit of money on players. That's the way I look at it - I was fortunate."

Brendan Shanahan scored twice and brilliant Dominik Hasek stopped 16 shots as Detroit became the second straight Presidents' Trophy winner to capture the Cup.

Afterwards, Hasek said he would decide in "a couple of days" whether or not he would retire.

The victory put them 4-1 ahead in the best-of-seven series.

Detroit defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the play-offs

"I was really surprised to win it," Lidstrom said.

"I wasn't even thinking about it, really. I'm more happy about winning another Cup, but winning the Conn Smythe is really an honour that I'll never forget."

Lidstrom did not score in game five, but his performance earned plaudits from Bowman.

"You look at what Nicklas Lidstrom did all the way through the playoffs and he was just about a perfect player on the ice," he said.

Jeff O'Neill scored the lone goal for the Hurricanes, whose amazing play-off run ended at the hands of a team with at least nine future Hall of Famers in the line-up.

The teams shared the first two games of the series in Detroit but the Hurricanes may have had their spirit broken back home in a triple-overtime loss in the third game.

The Hurricanes went almost eight periods without a goal before O'Neill halved a 2-0 deficit late in the second period.

But Carolina never came to close to getting the equalizer before Shanahan flipped a puck from just inside the centre-ice red line into an empty net in the final minute.