This division contains four of the six members of the "Original Six", thus, division rivalries involving these teams are among the most historic NHL rivalries. Spiritual Successor to the Adams Division.

Boston Bruins

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The Boston Bruins: the first NHL team south of the border. Famous former players include Bobby Orr, Cam Neely and Ray Bourque. Had one of the most dangerous top lines in the league in the late Tens and early Twenties — the 'Perfection Line' consisting of 'Perfect' Patrice Bergeron, the captain who retired in 2023, David 'Pasta' Pastrňák, and Brad 'The Rat' Marchand. The team throughout its history is known for having very physical, fight-heavy games, special mention going to the previously mentioned Neely, and Forward Shawn Thornton for the most penalty minutes in several recent seasons due to fighting. Former captain and defenseman Zdeno Chára is the tallest guy ever to play in the league, standing six feet, nine inches (2.06 meters). Their 39-year Cup drought ended when they won in 2011 over the Vancouver Canucks that infamously set off riots in the city that made world headlines, but would lose two more to end the decade (against Chicago in 2013^note though it was ultimately tarnished due to the Kyle Beach scandal (see below), in addition to Boston still reeling from the Boston Marathon Bombings (which had occurred a month prior to the playoffs), being one of the rare instances where their opponents actually rooted for the Bruins to win it all at the expense of their own Blackhawks (not unlike the 2001 World Series between the Yankees and Diamondbacks) and to St. Louis in 2019). In 2022–23, they set league records for most wins (65!) and points (135) in a season, and tied the record for most road wins (31)...but after a devastating first round loss in the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs despite a 3-1 lead, followed by a six-game loss in the 2024 playoffs, both to the Florida Panthers, the Bruins suffered a disastrous 2024–25 season that saw them trade away most of their starting lineup, including Marchand, culminating in their first season out of the playoffs since 2015–16 and their first losing record since 2006–07, and leaving Pastrňák as the last remaining member of the 'Perfection Line'. Have won more titles than any other American team but Detroit, but they also have lost the most titles in NHL history with 14 (recently losing the Cup to the rival Blues in 2019), surpassing Detroit's losses (13). They ''really'', '''REALLY''' hate Montreal^note due to having lost a good chunk of their Stanley Cup Finals matchups to them, nor do they like the other remaining Original 6 teams^note such as New York, Toronto, Chicago and Detroit, they have a mild dislike of the Philadelphia Flyers^note due to their Broad Street Bullies antics of the 70s that led the B's to lose the 74 Finals, as well as being reverse-swept in the 2010 ECF , they also don't like the St. Louis Blues^note on top of having historic battles with the Baseball Cardinals (with whom the Red Sox have split 4 World Series titles with), and the iconic Flying Orr goal that helped the B's complete a sweep of the Blues in the 1970 Finals (which ironically enough was the main inspiration for the Blues' own Cup run in 2019), to whom the B's lost their recent Cup after an infamous no call in Game 5 that completely changed the series momentum to the Blues' favor. and they also have a deep hatred for the Tampa Bay Lightning ^note due to their many playoff battles in recent years where the two teams have kicked each other out a few times and the Bolts' then-recent Stanley Cup allegations, on top of Tampa fans' own hatred for the city which stems from the Bruins' dirty plays during the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals that cut stars Vincent Lecavalier and Marty St Louis' careers short and they also despise the Vancouver Canucks^note despite beating them in the Finals, they hate them because of how they treated ex-Bruin Milan Lucic due to him being a local Vancouverian, on top of the infamous riots that followed , and have more recently come to loathe the Florida Panthers^note The above-mentioned playoff losses, plus the fact that Marchand wound up with the Panthers, which was seen as insult to injury given how badly the 2024–25 season was going already; their respective markets having longtime rivalries in both football and basketball doesn't help, either; in fact, they are in the running for the most hated team in all of the NHL up there with the Toronto Maple Leafs ^note due to the pro Boston/New England's teams dominance in the Big 4 sport leagues, which the Bruins contributed to by winning the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals and their notorious fanbase.

Buffalo Sabres

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The Buffalo Sabres: don't bring up Brett Hull's goal in 1999 to them. Please. Their original uniform design remains the most popular overall, given the backlash against their Goat's Head red and black era, and the Buffaslug. The team of the “French Connection” (a reference to the contemporary movie of the same name), a forward line from the 1970s consisting of three French-Canadians (center Gilbert Perreault, with Rick Martin to his left and Rene Robert on his right). Were owned by John Rigas, co-founder of regional cable company Adelphia beginning in 1997; Rigas and his sons then got busted for wide-ranging embezzlement in 2002, causing Adelphia to go into freefall and eventually collapse (their assets later dispersed among other cable companies), nearly taking the Sabres down with them in the process (and they did take the Empire Sports Network down; the Sabres later struck a deal with the MSG Network for a Buffalo-specific feed with Sabres games). Some of the money Rigas stole from Adelphia was actually used to help keep the Sabres afloat as the team struggled under his ownership. The Sabres were a ward of the league for a season before billionaire Tom Golisano and former Sabres president Larry Quinn stepped in (they sold out in 2010 to another billionaire, Terry Pegula). Also the team that had The Dominator — goalie Dominik Hašek — for his most dominant years. Besides him and fellow goalkeeper Ryan Miller, they've mostly lacked star power over the past few years, to the point where they've started to play so badly that advanced stats sites leave them off of charts as they've sort of become statistical outliers. They looked like they were turning a corner to start both the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons, only to collapse down the stretch both years, then approached historic depths in 2021.^note lowlights include an 0-15-3 stretch (started February 23; ended March 31) that tied the 2003-04 Penguins for longest losing streak in league history; having had, at times, the lowest known even strength goal rate in league history; and, at times, having had the seven worst plus/minus ratings for the season, toplined by 2018 first overall pick Rasmus Dahlin Attendance has dropped accordingly, falling below 10,000 per game for the first time since their inaugural season (when their arena only held around 12,000 people before it was expanded in the off-season and eventually replaced in 1996), while some of this can be attributed to COVID border restrictions^note Somewhere between a quarter to a third of Sabres fans live in southern Ontario it's mainly people deciding that money that would go to overpriced hockey tickets would be better spent elsewhere. They would experience a near resurgence in 2022-23 where they were above .500 for a good chunk of the season, but would lose the final playoff spot to the Islanders (setting a league record for missing the playoffs as a result).

Detroit Red Wings

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The Detroit Red Wings: the team of Steve Yzerman, The Captain for 20 years (a league record) and current general manager, and Gordie Howe, the all-time leading scorer of the Original Six era who was also noted for his physical play^note the "Gordie Howe hat trick" consists of scoring a goal, an assist, and a major penalty for fighting - a feat Howe himself only achieved twice in his career. Consistently good for almost all of the last 30 years—the 2016–17 season was the first since 1990 in which they missed the playoffs—therefore hated outside Detroit. The general dislike is newer than a lot of people think, since the post-expansion revival came after almost twenty years of being somewhat of a league Butt-Monkey and a strenuous rebuilding process. Before then, there just weren't as many teams to pass the Cup around to, but they were the most dominant of the American-based teams. Were notorious for being one of the most expensive teams in the NHL before the salary cap came to be, to the point where many people who hated them claimed they were only successful because they bought a championship caliber team rather than building up young and inexperienced players (much like the New York Yankees)^note a valid criticism of the 2002 team, which made a huge splash by signing Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, and Fredrik Olausson, but the 1997 and 1998 Cup-winners were largely built with homegrown talent and savvy trades with no big-time free agent acquisitions. However, the Red Wings remained competitive in the salary cap era, going on to win the Stanley Cup in 2008 (^note  which ultimately proved to be their last Cup win as a member of the Western Conference), proving that there is more to their success than simply throwing a lot of cash around (^note though since their move from the Western Conference as a result of the Atlanta Thrashers moving North to Winnipeg (reviving the Jets as a result) which forced the Wings to switch to the Eastern Conference (thereby losing their historic rivalry with Chicago and their former extremely bitter competitive rivalry with the Colorado Avalanche, but reigniting their equally-bitter historic rivalry with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the process), they haven't been to, much less won, the Cup since). Fans have a habit of chucking octopodes onto the ice during the playoffs (in the Original Six days a playoff team needed to beat two teams in best-of-seven, thus eight wins, to win the Cup; the tradition started in 1952, when the Wings swept both series for a perfect 8-0 record). The feelings between them and Chicago are mutual (even moreso now that the Red Wings are no longer in the same conference with their former rivals), but Detroit fans tend to have more creative chants. The Wings opened what was then the league's newest arena, Little Caesars Arena,^note Which naming rights were given to the pizza chain because it is owned by the Ilitch family—which also owns Olympia Entertainment, which in turn owns both Little Caesars Arena and the Red Wings. (Also the Detroit Tigers, but for obvious reasons they aren't involved with Little Caesars Arena.) There is actually a surprisingly wholseome reason for all this—Little Caesars founder Mike Ilitch was a huge Detroit sports fan from childhood, and was actually a good enough baseball player to get signed with the Tigers organization after completing a tour of duty with the Marines in 1952. However, a knee injury ended his career after four years being traded around the Minors, so he went back to Detroit, married his sweetheart, and opened a pizza parlor. After building up his pizza empire from nothing he bought the Red Wings and the Tigers with the express intent of making them/keeping them winning franchises. (It didn't necessarily shake out that way, but it wasn't for lack of trying on management's part.) TL;DR: Anyone who hates the Blackhawks, White Sox, Penguins, or Maple Leafs should eat Little Caesars Pizza. for the 2017–18 season.^note While that same season was the first for the Vegas Golden Knights, their home ice, T-Mobile Arena, opened nearly a year earlier. Were on pace to make history as the worst team in the NHL, due to having an over -100 goal differential (goal differential essentially being a better measuring stick for team performance than points or record) before the 2019-20 regular season ended early due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. They have since bounced back in the seasons that followed, but they still have yet to return to the playoffs, mostly thanks to alternating between hot streaks and poor performances during pivotal periods of the season (the closest they got was the 2023-24 season, where they weren't eliminated from playoff contention until their very last game). They have the 2nd most Cup losses in League history with 13 (trailing the Bruins by 1 ^note  due to most of their defeats coming against the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens .)

Florida Panthers

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The Florida Panthers: the current Stanley Cup champions. AKA the Cats. The Southernmost team to win the Stanley Cup when they finally secured victory in 2024. A team that started fast for an expansion team: they came very close to making the playoffs in their first season and made it to the Finals in their third ^note  where they got swept by a freshly relocated Colorado Avalanche team. After that, there wasn't much for them for over 20 years; their berth in the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs was their first since 2000. Not to mention that 2012 was their first year in winning a divisional championship. Their most notable contribution up until that point came during their Cinderella Finals run in 1996, when fans would litter the arena with plastic rats, causing extensive delays in games (due to one of their players killing a rat with his stick in the locker room … yeah, fans are weird). And 1996 was the only time the Panthers advanced in the playoffs until 2022, in-between crashing in Round 1 in six sparse appearances. Named after an endangered cougar. Their arena also has a multiple personality disorder, having gone through six different names in fifteen years.^note They're not the only ones — the Bruins, Flyers, Lightning, and Sabres have had similar issues with their current arenas. They really don't like Tampa Bay, a fact made worse by the fact that Lightning fans tend to look at the Panthers as an annoying little brother rather than an actual rival, along with an infamously mocking nickname known as the Kittens which builds on the little brother mindset. This mindset was initially reinforced in the early 2020s - even as the Panthers finally became consistent playoff contenders, including the President's Trophy in the 2021-22 season, they found themselves overshadowed by the Lightning's run of Finals appearances and Stanley Cups, including losses to Tampa in the First Round of 2021 and the Second Round of 2022.^note as if to emphasize that point, Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky put up a strong .919 save percentage only to be upstaged by Andrei Vasilevskiy's insane .981 in a sweep by the Lightning. It also marked the third matchup between the two goalies, with Bobrovsky having triumphed in the infamous 2019 Tampa-Columbus series before getting pulled repeatedly in 2021 due to poor performance. 2023 finally flipped the script - while the regular season was a struggle that ended with them barely securing the second Wild Card, they used that spot to make another Cinderella Finals run, where they would lose to the Vegas Golden Knights in 5 games ^note though it helped that they didn't have Tampa Bay in the way, as Toronto defeated them in 6 games. They would prove that season wasn't a fluke by winning the Prince of Wales Trophy again the next year, finally get past their hated rivals in Tampa Bay for the first time along the way in the first round. There, they defeated the Edmonton Oilers for their first ever Stanley Cup after avoiding disaster in 7 games (following taking a 3–0 lead in the finals), thereby supplanting the Lightning in becoming the Southernmost team to win the Cup in history. 2025 would see the Panthers make the Finals again and successfully repeat against the Oilers, this time in a much more dominant six-game series.

Montreal Canadiens

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The Montreal Canadiens: AKA the Habs,^note For "Les Habitants", an old term for French-origin inhabitants of Quebec.^MoreThe team's legal name is Club de hockey Canadien. Now you know what the strange "CH" logo is all about. Older than the NHL; their history begins in the NHL's predecessor league, the National Hockey Association. They're the world's oldest continuously operating professional hockey team.^*Not only are the Habs older than the NHL, they also predate every Canadian professional sports team outside the CFL, as well as every American major professional team apart from the 16 pre-expansion Major League Baseball teams and the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. Have won 24 championships, a feat surpassed only by the New York Yankees who have 3 more championships than the Habs. Also the last Canadian based team to win the Cup (1993, which was the same year that hated Commissioner Gary Bettman took over the league), in which they bested the Gretzky-led Kings in 5 games, their Cup win actually set off riots throughout Montreal following their victory ^note which Foreshadow what was to come the following year and may have placed a curse on all Canadian teams in the process. Goaltender Jacques Plante made the goalie mask regular gear after stopping an Andy Bathgate slapshot with his nose in 1959. Pretty much the team of French Canada with the departure of the Quebec Nordiques to Colorado in 1995. Their long, storied history includes some legendary French-Canadian players: Maurice ‘Le Rocket’ Richard, Jean Béliveau, Guy Lafleur and Patrick Roy. They hate Toronto with a passion, they loathe Boston, and they really don't like Zdeno Chára, they have a slightly favorable view of the Tampa Bay Lightning due to their shared hatred of the Bruins and the Leafs. In the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs they managed to pull of a miraculous Cinderella run where, despite coming 18th in the regular season and only barely making it into the postseason, they beat a heavily favored Maple Leafs team (who won 11 more games in the regular season and had 3-1 series lead before collapsing), swept the Jets, who swept the equally favourited Oilers, and managed to beat the Golden Knights, who have been favourites to win the Cup ever since they entered the league. This not only led to their first Finals appearance since 1993, but it also led to the first time a Canadian based team made it to the Finals in ten years, though it sadly ended in disappointment when they lost to the defending champions Tampa Bay Lightning in 5 games.^note Though the only game they won in the Finals also kept alive an unusual record: the Habs have lost 10 finals, but only the 1989 Calgary Flames managed to hoist the Stanley Cup in Montreal. Still, the following season was a massive regression, finishing last overall.

Ottawa Senators

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The Ottawa Senators: not related to the old Ottawa Senators (1883–1934) who won the Cup 11 times. Their first two seasons were absolute disasters (their 1992–93 season saw them win only 10 games of 84), but they slowly grew into perennial playoff contenders for most of the 2000's, no matter if a constantly underachieving.^note They could never get past the Leafs whenever they met (four times in the last five years before the season-cancelling lockout), and their only Finals appearance ended in defeat to the Ducks.. They've fallen off again in the New '10s, and after a surprise conference finals run in 2017, came completely unraveled in the space of a year, with massive regression, numerous trades of both star players and high draft picks for magic beans^note one prominent example was a three-way trade that sent key center Kyle Turris to Nashville and a conditional first-round pick in 2018 (which eventually became the fourth overall pick in 2019 due to the '18 pick falling in the top ten) to Colorado in exchange for over-hyped Avalanche forward Matt Duchene; Duchene himself was shipped off to Columbus for prospects and conditional picks less than 16 months later, and threats by ownership to move the team. Despite being in the capital of the most hockey-crazed country, a slightly remote arena sometimes makes fans weary of attending games - not it stops Montreal and Toronto (the latter from the same province as Ottawa) from filling up the place, something the ownership eventually got tired of. Once got into a massive brawl with the Buffalo Sabres with 100 penalty minutes and goalies going at each other. Also, former star player Dany Heatley is disliked by fans.

Tampa Bay Lightning

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The Tampa Bay Lightning: AKA the Bolts. Formerly the Southernmost team to have won the Cup, having won in 2004, 2020, and 2021, although all three had some form of controversy attached.^note The "phantom goal" that would have cost Tampa the Cup in '04 is arguably the most controversial call other than Brett Hull's "foot in the crease" in 1999; the 2020 Cup is sometimes questioned due to the unusual circumstances caused by the pandemic (same scenario would've befallen their Finals opponents the Dallas Stars had they won the Cup, making it a lose-lose situation regardless of the victor); the 2021 Cup caused a firestorm amongst fans and even other players due to accusations of Loophole Abuse to circumvent the salary cap, at least in spirit, and bring an overpowered roster into the playoffs (ironically enough, their 2015 Finals opponents the Chicago Blackhawks pulled the exact same tactic during their 3 Cup runs, and Tampa Bay was one of the teams that attempted to get the rule changed)... Think twice about bringing up these allegations to the Bolts faithful! They were the first attempt to market hockey in a former Confederate state since the Atlanta Flames (who moved to Calgary), and helped start a wave of expansion teams and team relocations during The '90s when they showed a steady fanbase. They set single-game attendance records for a few years due to playing in a then-vacated domed baseball stadium (now Tropicana Field and home to the Rays), which was larger than any hockey arena but also made it hard to keep the ice solid. They quickly turned heads in their first year by having the first female goalie in NHL history in Manon Rhéaume!^note She appeared at training camp and in the pre-season, never appearing in a regular season game, but her short stint led to her becoming a household name ever since. They were first led by star players such as Vincent Lecavalier (drafted in 1998 during the Bolts' Dark Ages ^note where they were used as a part of a money laundering scheme by their first owner Takashi Okubo (owner of the Kokusai Green golf company), who was in league with the Yakuza which nearly bankrupt the team due to paying most of their players in the form of loans, the issue got so bad to the point that the League had to get involved to save the team from outright folding), Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards early in the 2000s, later helping lead the Bolts to their first Stanley Cup in 2004. However the NHL lockout happened shortly after which wiped out the entire 04-05 Season preventing the Bolts from properly defending their crown (leading to another brief Audience-Alienating Era that saw them getting bounced early in the playoffs or in some cases nearly missing the playoffs,^note  which lead to the trade of Brad Richards, and wasting the career of Vinny's and Marty's best years). After drafting Steven Stamkos in 2008 with the #1 pick and Victor Hedman #2 the following year (and the eventual drafting of goalie Andre "Big Cat" Vasileveskiy and perennial scorers Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point), they started to have stretches of good play in the past decade becoming one of the strongest teams of The New '10s, first including a surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2011 (during Vincent's twilight years) where due to a lack of a permanent goaltender they lost to the eventual Cup winner Bruins in 7 games which would ignite one of the more bitter rivalries (^note it's heavily theorized that had the Bolts won the series, they'd likely would've beaten the powerhouse Vancouver Canucks in the Final that year due to having a stronger offense and defense than Vancouver, despite the lack of a permanent goalie), then later advancing to their second Stanley Cup final in 2015 (eventually losing to the Blackhawks in 6 ^note tarnished due to the Kyle Beach scandal (see below)). They then started having a small period of Every Year They Fizzle Out where they made 2 Conference Finals appearances (^note first losing to the Crosby-led Penguins in 7 games in 2016 and then losing to the Washington Capitals in 2018 in which both teams would go on to win the Cup, much to the displeasure of the Tampa fanbase). But the failure ultimately peaked in 2018-19 where they won the President's Trophy that year while tying the 1995-96 Red Wings for the then-most dominant regular season in NHL history (62 wins!)... only to end up becoming the first ever President's Trophy winners in NHL history to be swept in the first round after losing their series to the Columbus Blue Jackets, led by their former coach John Tortorella who had coached them their first Stanley Cup victory back in 2004 no less, leading many media pundits to question the Bolts' ability to win in the long run. However, they came back with a vengeance in the following year, winning their second cup after the playoffs were delayed till August due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and then their third cup the following year. They then made history in 2022 by making their third straight Cup final appearance in a row! (Becoming the first team to do so in the current Salary Cap Era since Gretzky's legendary 80s Oilers). However their quest for the first three-peat since the legendary 80's Islanders squad ended in heartbreak as they lost to the far more highly powered offense of the Avalanche in 6 games ^note though to be fair, the Bolts were coming off from extremely short Summer off-seasons in-between their 3 straight runs along with key injuries to superstar Brayden Point which severely affected the Lightning's performance during their third run. Set a new standard for stadium Rule of Cool in 2011 when renovations to the St. Pete Times Forum (now Benchmark International Arena) included the installation of Tesla coils in the rafters that shoot real lightning during the pregame intro and after goals. Oh, and despite those aforementioned Florida Panthers (who play in a suburb of Miami), the Bolts predate them by one year. They outright hate Boston with a passion (arguably moreso than the Montreal Canadians who are the B's longtime rivals), moreso than any American club. They hate them so much so that their fans will often chant "Fuck Boston!" in Benchmark International Arena even if they aren't playing the Bruins (leading to many cheers from the Bruins' rivals who also hate Boston, sans Toronto) ^note this unknown hatred may have formed due in part to the notorious dirty plays and hits from the Bruins during the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals (especially from Zendo Chara and Brad Marchand) that ended their chance to win the 2011 Stanley Cup, and cut fan favorite Vincent Lecavalier's and Marty St. Louis' careers short, which pushed the former to signing with the Philadelphia Flyers (and eventually Los Angeles) and forcing the latter to request a trade to the Rangers, which the Bolts fans have never forgiven Boston. In contrast their in-state rivalry with Florida hasn't been much of a thing and barely gets acknowledged, though it has been heating up in recent years ^note with it now being full blown hatred between the two clubs and their fanbases, with the Bolts fans starting fights with the Panthers' fans and even their mascot and giving the team and their fans the unflattering nickname of the Kittens, with the Bolts and Panthers meeting in the playoffs over the last two years, with Tampa Bay winning both times and met again in the 2023-24 playoffs, where hated Florida finally got the better of the aging Lightning squad in 5 games ^note ensuring that the Panthers will likely remain the Lightning's little brothers. They also dislike both of the New York teams (moreso the Isles than the Rangers ^note due to questionable calls favouring the Lightning in the second matchup en route to their second straight Cup win), they also hate the Toronto Maple Leafs, ^note whom they have split their first round series at 1 apiece following the Bolts' loss in the first round which has begun to heat up in recent years (both of their respective first round matchups featured lots of fighting between the two clubs and dirty plays), they also dislike the Calgary Flames due to the infamous no goal call in the 2004 Cup Finals despite emerging as the winners (see above), and have a mild dislike of the Montreal Canadiens^note due to Tampa's recent defeat of them in the Finals and the accusations of their recent Cup wins, though they both have a shared hatred of Boston and Toronto and have begun to develop (as of their recent Cup loss) a potential new rivalry with the Colorado Avalanche (though much like the Cup loss with the Blackhawks in 2015, it has yet to properly develop), the 2022-2023 season was a massive regression due to the Cup years and injuries finally taking their toll on the team (in addition to the Cap hit forcing them to trade away their powerful defensive players that nearly led them to a Cup Dynasty) and they bowed out to the hated Maple Leafs in 6 games, which got far worse the following year when their hated in-state rivals Florida finally crushed them in 5 games en-route to them winning their first Stanley Cup, effectively becoming the Southernmost team to win the Stanley Cup.

Toronto Maple Leafs

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The Toronto Maple Leafs; known for bad declension,^note Technically, it's correct because the team isn't named after the things that grow on trees but the Canadian Maple Leaf Regiment that fought in World War I. being hated by the rest of Canada and all of the United States (especially among Montreal fans), being the most valuable franchise in the league, and not having won the Cup since 1967, which may or may not be due to the lingering effects of their former deceased owner Harold Ballard implying that Ballard placed a curse on the team (as of 2022 and their First Round defeat at the hands of Tampa Bay, it is now the longest Cup drought in NHL history), a sentiment further enhanced by their long runs of ineptitude post-lockout.^note their first playoff appearance in the salary cap era was a seven game loss to the Bruins in 2013, with their second not coming until 2017. Their first series win wouldn't come until 2023, and despite all of this they still haven't won a game seven since 2004, posting an 0-7 mark in such games (0-8 in all winner-take-all games when their best-of-five play-in series loss to Columbus in 2020 is included).

Their rivalry with the Canadiens is the oldest in the league. They hate their provincial rivals, the Ottawa Senators, a lot ever since their rebirth in 1993 (as part of the big wave of The '90s expansion teams) and have kicked them out of the playoffs on five occasions as of 2025; they also despise the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings (due to historic matchups) and are a notable rival of the Buffalo Sabres (due to the teams' close proximity to each other) and have begun a new more hateful rivalry with the Tampa Bay Lightning that has been heating up in recent years. The Toronto Maple Leafs are by far and away the most profitable and popular team in the sport, with season tickets to Scotiabank Arena (their home rink) unavailable for a minimum of ten years, and home games rarely not sold out, they are also tied for being the most hated team in the NHL with the Boston Bruins ^note  this is primarily due to their loyal fans, which most teams fans south of the border see them as highly egoistical, entitled and very annoying, though the same could be said for the rest of the Canadian teams' fanbases once their teams start winning. Though Toronto's far more hated simply because of how popular they are throughout Canada, though other Canadian fans will begrudgingly root for them if their teams' aren't in it. Their immense profitability and popularity has ensured that, despite their losing streak (approaching sixty years), they are not in any danger of closing shop any time soon. With big names like Brendan Shanahan, Mike Babcock and Lou Lamoriello joining the front office staff in the mid-2010s, leading to a heavy influx of young talent on the ice that culminated in the 2016 1st overall selection of Auston Matthews and the 2018 offseason acquisition of former Islanders centerpiece John Tavares, there was finally some hope in "Leafs Nation", with early predictions that they could make a serious run for the Cup for the first time in decades. This never came to pass during Shanahan's increasingly controversial tenure, though - despite making the playoffs in the first nine years following the Matthews draft, they've only won two playoff series with the so called "Core Four"^note a group nickname given to Matthews, Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, considered the four key forwards in their offensive gameplan; all have been well compensated for their services, although both Tavares and Marner are due for new contracts in summer 2025, with the latter signaling plans to test free agency as the cap dramatically increases (2023 against the Lightning, 2025 against the Senators), both of which were Pyrrhic Victories that cost key figures their jobs after being torn apart by the Panthers in the next round - GM Kyle Dubas^note a Shanahan protege who was promoted to the job after Lamoriello left for the Islanders, a move that directly led to Tavares' free agency decision. Ironically, thanks to their bubble success, Lamoriello's Islanders have won more series in Toronto than the Leafs have with Tavares. was fired in a power play by Shanahan meant to keep the Core Four together, with Dubas' hand-picked coach Sheldon Keefe^note hired after Babcock was fired in a wave of scandal related to allegations of abusive behavior from former and current Leafs players, which were backed up by accounts of similar behavior by players on the Wings and Ducks teams he coached in the 2000s, and gained even more traction after a forced resignation from the Blue Jackets prior to training camp in 2023 was revealed to have been caused by privacy intrusions against rookie members of the team getting the axe after another game seven loss to Boston in 2024^note as of 2025, the Maple Leafs haven't beat the Bruins in their seven postseason confrontations in the post-Expansion Six era, having last triumphed in 1959. Twisting the knife, all four of the duo's salary cap era matchups have ended in game seven, with the Bruins thus accounting for half of Toronto's winner-take-all defeats in this time. Shanahan filled the openings with former Flames GM Brad Treliving and former Cup-winning Blues coach Craig Berube, respectively, but with Shanahan himself being increasingly forced to the margins throughout 2025 even as the Leafs won the Atlantic Division (only their second division title since the lockout, the other being the 2021 North Division), it was widely believed his future was tied to the Leafs playoff performance - which came to pass when his contract was allowed to expire following their game seven loss to Florida. This era of the team also picked up a reputation for playing dirty when things don't go their way (especially in the playoffs), leading many opposing fans to hate the Maple Leafs even more. They also quite infamously lost against a 42-year-old Zamboni driver who works for them. Even worse after this incident, their attempt at changing the Emergency Backup Goaltender (commonly shortened to EBUG) rule to make it so the visiting team had to bring one of their own instead of relying on the host team to provide one didn't fly with the league, for obvious logistical reasons.

The only division normally based entirely in the United States, it is basically an expanded Patrick Division, as six of its eight members made up that division from 1982 to 1993.

Carolina Hurricanes

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The Carolina Hurricanes: formerly the Hartford Whalers, and formerly of the WHA; moved in 1997 because they were getting squeezed financially by the Original Six Bruins and Rangers (and to a lesser extent, the Islanders and Devils) and they were playing in a tiny arena that was literally part of a shopping mall complex. First couple of years in North Carolina didn't go so well either on or off the ice (half-empty arenas are a persistent problem for NHL teams in the South, especially if the team is less than awesome). A Cup run in 2002 and a Cup victory in 2006 turned things around for a while, though (Raleigh hosted a successful All-Star Game in 2011, which speaks to the fanbase support the team has cultivated), and they had usually been in contention with Washington for the Southeast Division titles. A lack of sustained success saw them sink back to the bottom of the league in attendance numbers, but things seem to be looking up for them after they snapped a 10-year streak of not qualifying for the playoffs in the 2018/19 season. With a primary gameplan of making opposing goalies face a massive number of shots regardless of shot quality, they became perennial contenders in the early 2020s...but with the unfortunate reputation of continuously flaming out during the second or third rounds of the playoffs. In particular, they held a 15-game Conference Final losing streak from 2009-2025 (with 11 of those losses coming in the current Sebastian Aho-Andrei Svechnikov era), having been swept three times and winning Game 4 of the 2025 ECF to narrowly avoid a fourth.

Columbus Blue Jackets

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The Columbus Blue Jackets: the second NHL team in Ohio (the Cleveland Barons^note Also the name of a longstanding minor-level American Hockey League (AHL) franchise from 1937 to 1973, then from 2001 to 2006. played from 1976 to 1978). Has a cannon in their home arena that fires after every Jackets goal and victory on home ice, honoring the state of Ohio's contributions to the Union (hence the name) - fans love it, while players and commentators from other teams typically do not. As a result of inept management and coaching, they were the undisputed Butt Monkeys of the league for most of their early existence, perennially finishing near the bottom of the standings. However, the team's fortunes finally turned in the early 2010s with the replacement of both its general manager and head coach. Since then, they've more or less become the league's designated underdogs, showing flashes of brilliance here and there (the most recent and perhaps triumphant example being when they swept the historically successful Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2019 playoffs, outscoring them 19-8 in the process) but never quite being able to convert them into long-term success. With a notorious inability to retain top-grade talent (the 2019 offseason saw three of their best players leave the team all at once, with one of them infamously taking a pay cut to do so), only time will tell if they'll ever be able to shake that reputation and become true contenders. The history of the Blue Jackets has been marred by tragedy. During the team's second season in March 2002, a deflected puck flew into the stands of their home stadium of Nationwide Arena and hit 13-year-old hockey fan Brittanie Cecil, who died from her injuries two days later; her death led the NHL to require safety netting starting the following season. On July 4, 2021, young goalkeeper Matiss Kivlenicks died in a tragic fireworks accident where an errant rocket struck him in the chest, which shielded several teammates and their family members, including potential goal platoon-mate Elvis Merzlikens. Then, on August 29, 2024, Johnny Gaudreau was killed along with his brother when both were hit by an allegedly drunk driver. Gaudreau was considered a potential salvation for the Jackets, as he had signed in the 2022 offseason over the Calgary Flames, having bucked the team's previous reputation of players not wanting to go to, or stay in, Columbus.

New Jersey Devils

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The New Jersey Devils: formerly the Kansas City Scouts AND the Colorado Rockies.^note No, not those Rockies. They are a tale of three eras: the Expansion Era, the Lamoriello Era, and the Post-Lamoriello Era. During their Expansion Era, they spent two years in Kansas City as the Scouts from 1974 to 1976. They relocated to Colorado as the Rockies where they made the playoffs once and ended up relocating again in 1982 to New Jersey where they continued to be the league's undisputed Butt-Monkey.^note None other than The Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky, called them a "Mickey Mouse organization" in 1983 after he scored his first of two eight-point games against them. Then, in 1988, in the first year of the Lou Lamoriello Era, they Took a Level in Badass and began a 24-year streak where they won three championships ^note in fact, their first Cup win in 1995 actually saved the team from outright relocating to Nashville due to the same issues that had plagued the team in the past, which would ultimately lead to the birth of the Nashville Predators and only missed the playoffs three times; however, after losing the Cup in 2012, they have missed the playoffs the next five years. Ray Shero was brought in as GM was brought in during that time and the Post-Lamoriello Era began with savvy trades, strong free agency and their first ever No. 1 Draft pick in 2017. In 2018, the Devils returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2012. Since then, they've been mostly competitive, though are still looking to replicate their Lamoriello Era success. The team of Martin Brodeur, who is always in the discussion of best goalie ever and currently holds numerous career records. During the Lamoriello Era, they traditionally won with defense and came up with the neutral-zone trap^note Larry Robinson, who coached the Devils to a second Stanley Cup win, stated that when he played with the Montreal Canadiens in the 70s (alongside former Devils coach Jacques Lemaire, who led the Devils to their first Stanley Cup win), the team utilized a similar trap-like style game that led Montreal to a Cup dynasty. that led to low-scoring games all across the league in the years before the lockout. Now under the Shero Era, the Devils rebranded themselves as a speed-first, high-scoring team that caught the league by storm. Does not like the Rangers,^note The chant in the link happens at every home game, without exception, no matter who they're playing against or what point it is in the season. even the front office: until the Rangers traded Michael Grabner to the Devils for Yegor Rykov and a second round draft pick in February 2018, New Jersey had made trades with every other team except the Rangers. Though historically they have had trouble selling tickets (except for games against the Rangers and Flyers), this has recently changed due to the coming of age of their fans that grew up watching them win three Cups as children. Recognized in hockey circles as a heavily strict and heavily disciplined franchise, with a team-first mentality. Oh, and they're named after a cryptid called The Jersey Devil that supposedly haunts the Pine Barrens region. Hockey fans in New Jersey are typically torn between being loyal to either the Devils, Rangers or the Flyers (older fans in North Jersey tend to root for the Rangers while South Jersey, closer to Philly than Newark, roots for the Flyers), a fact many Devils fans are not happy about; "But the team's named after Jersey!" most of them will cry, ignoring the fact that the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia is far closer to home than the Prudential Center in Newark for the vast majority of the population living in the Southern half of the state.

New York Islanders

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The New York Islanders: if the Rangers represent the five boroughs and the Devils represent Newark and the New Jersey suburbs, then the Islanders represent the communities of Long Island. The team was founded in 1972, initially as a way for the NHL to prevent the World Hockey Association from establishing a rival second NYC team, seeing what happened with the Jets in 1960 and Nets in 1967. Despite having a horrible inaugural season (finishing the season at only 30 points), they not long after started to field a high caliber hockey team, capping it off with a string of four straight Stanley Cups from 1980 to 1983. Since then, history and a hatred for the Rangers and John Tavares ^note A former Islanders captain who, despite publicly expressing interest in staying, left for the Toronto Maple Leafs as a free agent. and two surprisingly good runs to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2020 and 2021 (which would lead them to a mild dislike of the Tampa Bay Lightning) are really all they have going for them. Spent more than two decades without winning a playoff series (1993, when they upset Pittsburgh in the division finals, to 2016, when they faced the equally unlucky Panthers in the first round). Has a reputation for managerial ineptitude: trading away future stars, overpaying on contracts, etc. (outstanding ones being injury-prone goaltender Rick DiPietro to a 15-year contract, which got bought out halfway through;^note He wasn't even with the Islanders, but their minor league team Bridgeport Sound Tigers. and Alexei Yashin, whose buying out in 2007 would be spread out until 2015 … when he retired in Russia in 2012!), not to mention their 1997 franchise sale to a con artist who convinced the NHL he had the money to afford an NHL franchise, only to be found out that he couldn't. The Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, their home from their creation through the 2014–15 season, was by far the crappiest arena in the league and was at the time the second oldest in the league, after the rival Rangers' Madison Square Garden (which is periodically renovated so as to stay modern). They attempted to build a new arena for years, only to be stopped by Nassau County's massive webs of red tape. They ended up moving to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in 2015, which became the smallest arena in the league and is infamous for not being hockey-friendly,^note Barclays was optimized for basketball, given that it was built by the NBA's Brooklyn Nets; thus, the jumbotron is not aligned with center ice and plenty of seats have obstructed views. Ironically, the Nets had originally planned Barclays to be able to accommodate an NHL team properly, but the Islanders chose to continue to focus their efforts on Nassau County instead, and by the time the Isles finally gave up, Barclays had been completed in its current configuration. eventually forcing the team to share games between the Barclays and a revamped Coliseum while their next stadium, UBS Arena (located right next to the Belmont Park horse track in Elmont), was being built. Before the team moved back full-time to the Coliseum in 2020–21, its nickname was arguably an Artifact Title.^note Brooklyn is physically on Long Island, as is Queens, but to a NYC resident, "Long Island" means Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The new arena, the league's newest, opened in late November 2021, with the Isles playing their first 13 games on the road.^note The Seattle Kraken's Climate Pledge Arena opened about six weeks earlier; while the interior was brand-new, the exterior is the league's oldest, dating to 1962.

• To be fair about the DiPietro contract, it seems to have become more of a harbinger of contracts to come: more double-digit-year contracts for more high-profile players have since been made by teams around the league, and the league voided a 17-year contract between Ilya Kovalchuk and the Devils because it evaded the salary cap too blatantly (they later settled on a 15-year one that the league was fine with). The league later implemented new rules on contracts in the 2013 CBA, including limits on term (8 years to extend with the team that held your rights at the trade deadline, 7 years to sign with a new one); and structure (the lowest yearly payout must be no less than 50% of the highest payout),^note most of the contracts that followed DiPietro's tended to heavily front-load the actual cash payouts, then have several years of severely reduced salary to bring the average annual value (also the cap hit, since the 2005 CBA) down; to go back to the Kovalchuk example, the rejected contract had six years of near league minimum payments tacked on, while the accepted version had six years between one and four million and six years over eleven million. to prevent this, along with a retroactive punishment called the cap advantage recapture penalty to prevent teams from benefitting from these contracts if the players left their teams early.^note DiPietro's own contract would have been exempt, as it had real money payouts equal to the AAV/cap hit for the duration.

New York Rangers

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The New York Rangers: The name comes from the fact that the first owner was a guy named Tex.^note George Lewis "Tex" Rickard; in other words, “Tex's Rangers". Most recent year of glory was 1994, when the Curse of 1940 was broken (the longest Cup drought in history at 53 seasons until Toronto inherited the dubious honor in 2022). The Rangers have a fierce rivalry with the Islanders and Devils, which made Messier's Game 6 hat trick and Matteau's double OT goal in Game 7 of the 1994 Conference Finals that much sweeter. Has a recent history of overpaying for players, though management seems to be trying to change that. The Rangers have, in the last 40 years, tended to buy what superstars they had ^note  Exceptions include Henrik Lundqvist, Brian Leetch and Mike Richter, 2 of whom are goalies., which contributed to a self-sustaining state of ^note  sometimes high-end, but mostly somewhere in the middle of the pack mediocrity, never being quite good enough ('94 being an aversion) to win the Cup but never quite bad enough to draft high enough to pick up potential franchise players. Post-lockout, have been one of the powerhouse teams of the NHL, making deep playoff runs in all but a few years despite a lack of a true superstar, with the possible exception of Goalie Henrik Lundqvist and, at the start of the run, Jaromír Jágr. Announced a rebuild in close to the 2018 trade deadline and took a page from the New York Yankees book of rebuilding, making smart trades that resulted in them having 5 first round picks in the 2018 and 2019 drafts, one of which they sent back to the original owner for that team's best defenseman.^note Although that defenseman, Jacob Trouba, has become a Hate Sink for virtually the entire league's fanbase since arriving in Manhattan; Rangers fans hate him for perceived underperformance (not helping him is that Neal Pionk, a throw-in defenseman sent to Winnipeg with the draft pick, has been as good or better both offensively and defensively than Trouba has been with the Rangers), while everyone else hates him for his habit of laying hard, sometimes illegal, hits on players The high picks (#2 in 2019, #1 in 2020) and the large amount of money to spend, which, as usual, they spent on the most expensive free agent on the market, appeared to have sparked a resurgence by 2021-22, with a playoff berth and two comebacks to return to the conference finals. However, after losing the 2024 Eastern Conference Final to the Florida Panthers, the Rangers regressed the following season to the point of missing the playoffs. The team no longer plays “Let's Go Band” at home games because every time it's played, diehards will chant "Potvin sucks!"^note This chant long outlived the career of Hall of Fame defenseman Denis Potvin of the rival Islanders, to whom it was directed, though it became relevant again when the unrelated goalie Felix Potvin had a brief stint with the Isles.

Philadelphia Flyers

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The Philadelphia Flyers: One of the teams created in the 1967 Expansion, and the first of the expansion-era teams to win the Stanley Cup. Historically known as the Broad Street Bullies of the '70s, where they pretty much punched their way to the Cup, twice.^note Although Bernie Parent's skimpy less-than-two-goals-against average probably had a little to do with it. Many Philadelphia cars at the time sported bumper stickers declaring “Only God saves more than Bernie Parent”. Chronically lacked a permanent goaltender through much of the 2000's and 2010's, until Carter Hart emerged as a viable starter in the early 2020's...just as the rest of the team fell apart around him, eventually culminating in the trades of captain Claude Giroux and fellow top player Jakub Voracek in 2022. On the subject of goaltenders: the first ever goalie to score a goal off a direct shot on net was the Flyers' Ron Hextall.^note The first goalie to get credit for a goal was Billy Smith of the Islanders; the opposing Colorado Rockies accidentally put the puck into their own net on a delayed penalty after Smith was the last Islander to touch it The only NHL team to defeat the Soviet Red Army team during their "Super Series '76" string of exhibition games, Ed van Impe's check on Valeri Kharlamov left the latter face-down on the ice for over a minute.^note The Red Army team withdrew from the ice in protest of no penalty being called, but were browbeaten back on when they said they wouldn't get paid for the entire excursion if they left. Their arena has been named after four different banks that ate each other up one after the other. They have particularly notable rivalries with the Rangers, Devils, and Penguins, the latter of which they hate the most and divides within the state of Pennsylvania and a slightly lesser rivalry with the Boston Bruins. They made waves in late 2018 with the introduction of their new mascot, a burnt-sienna, googly-eyed... thing in a Flyers uniform by the name of Gritty, who quickly won over the city and the internet by just how weird he is.

Pittsburgh Penguins

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The Pittsburgh Penguins: another of the teams created in the 1967 Expansion and arguably the most successful of the bunch with 5 Stanley Cups ^note all of their Cup runs taking place during back-to-back trips in each decade dating back to The '90s, putting the Pens in rare company not seen since the Original 6 Era. The team of Sidney "Sid the Kid" Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but really, it's "Super Mario" Lemieux's team. He's saved them from bankruptcy at least twice; first as the hot number-one pick in 1984^note  Though this was not without controversy; by the time of the 1984 draft, it was clear Lemieux would develop into a generational talent, and he stated his willingness to play for whomever made him an offer. However, the Penguins are alleged to have deliberately lost enough of their late season games in 1983-84 to finish last in the NHL, three points behind the Devils, in order to get the top draft pick and bring Lemieux to Pittsburgh. Think twice before mentioning these allegations in front of Penguins fans. that revitalized the team and won two Cups in 1991 and 1992, and then again by buying the team outright, and then coming out of retirement to put butts back in the seats and thereby becoming the first ever player/owner in the NHL. Although they faced potential relocation a few years ago, first to Hamilton, Ontario and then to Kansas City, a new arena deal was struck in 2007, and the new building opened in 2010. Under Crosby and Malkin's leadership, got to two straight finals in 2008 and 2009, winning the latter, and following a long stretch with postseason shortcomings and/or injuries to several of their core players (most infamously the concussion that sidelined Crosby for all but a handful games in 2011), won the Penguins' fourth and fifth Cups back-to-back in 2016 and 2017. One notable thing about the team was their involvement in the action film Sudden Death, featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme in what's essentially Die Hard...at a hockey game! The most (in)famous scene has JCVD fighting a terrorist in the costume of the team's mascot Iceburgh. Most of the film was shot at the Penguins' then-home ice, the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, including an insane final scene involving a helicopter plummeting through the arena's roof and crashing onto the arena floor. The players themselves made cameos throughout the film, playing against the Blackhawks in the final game of the 1995 Stanley Cup Final^note the original plan was to use footage of a real game, but the 1994-95 lockout made that impossible; this however left the filmmakers with plenty of time to do anything they needed, though at times the players are not the real ones but substitutes from the Penguins' and Blackhawks' farm teams. Before the league-brokered sale and quasi-relocation of the Arizona Coyotes, the Pens were the most recent team to have changed hands, with Lemieux and his business partner Ron Burkle selling out during the 2021–22 season to Fenway Sports Group. Yes, as in the Boston Red Sox.^note Both Lemieux and Burkle continue to hold minority stakes, and Lemieux still runs hockey operations.

Washington Capitals

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The Washington Capitals: the team of Alexander Ovechkin. Their first season saw them with the worst winning percentage in modern NHL history ('74/'75 record: 8-67-5). For several years they usually had much more regular-season success, but Every Year They Fizzle Out in the first or second round of the playoffs (typically at the hands of the Islanders, Rangers, or Penguins); they then lost even their regular season success, as while Ovechkin remains potent offensively, his support all but crumbled, and without any real defense to back him up, they dropped in the standings until finally missing the playoffs in 2014, but bounced back to finish with the league best record in 2016 and followed it up with a Cup win in 2018 (though they have since returned back to their old ways). The Capitals have appeared in the Stanley Cup Final only twice in its franchise history: the first was in 1998, in which they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings; the next would take place twenty years later in 2018, where they faced and defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the first Finals series since 2007 to feature two teams that had not yet won the Stanley Cup. Their only other conference championship appearance was in 1990, which ended in a sweep by the Bruins.

This division served as the home for the Western Conference's Eastern Time Zone teams over the three decades it had them, but now except for Colorado and Utah (both of which are in the Mountain Time Zone), it is entirely based in the Central Time Zone. Spiritual Successor of the Norris Division.

Chicago Blackhawks

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The Chicago Blackhawks: the only Original Six team left in the West. A team with both history (Tony Esposito, Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull) and rising stars (Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews). Known for the longest time of having an incredibly stingy owner who would place the bottom line over winning the Stanley Cup. Interestingly, as soon as said owner died (to boos from the fans when asked for a moment of silence), his son took over and changed things. One of those things was finally allowing home games to be broadcast on Chicago TV. That has pushed CSN Chicago and WGN to their highest ratings ever. Even NBC and Versus have enjoyed some of the highest ratings they've had for playoff games. Everyone was very happy and the team suddenly played very well, ending a 49-year Cup drought in 2010 and following it up with another two Cup wins in 2013 and 2015^note  though the first, if not all three, is permanently scarred due to the Kyle Beach scandal, leading many to question the now-deceased Rocky's ownership. The Blackhawks are known for having a very rowdy fanbase, being loud enough to hear WAY outside the Chicago Stadium/United Center, and being raucous enough to earn the United Center the nickname "The Madhouse on Madison". They really hate Detroit and for that matter they really dislike Vancouver also◊. Neither do they care for St. Louis or Minnesota. And they also have a negative reaction to both Dallas and Minnesota because of the North Stars in the '80s. That being said, many a Blackhawk fan does have a favorable opinion of the Colorado Avalanche because of what is seen as a shared hatred of Detroit.

As for the name, the Hawks have a more convoluted history than most American pro sports teams with Native American themed mascots: the Blackhawks were officially named after a division of the US Army that the team's founder had served in, and that Army division had been nicknamed the 'Blackhawk Division' after a leader of the Sauk tribe. The Blackhawks' stance is that their name honors a specific historical figure, and have made efforts to ban stereotypical Native American dress among fans. Opinions of Native American groups on the Blackhawks is somewhat mixed: some groups feel that the Blackhawks honor a genuine Illinois historical figure and try to do so respectfully in comparison to most such sports mascots, while other groups continue to call for the Blackhawks to change their name and mascot. At the time of writing, the Blackhawks' official position is that they will continue to use the name and imagery, but the controversy continues.

Colorado Avalanche

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The Colorado Avalanche: AKA the Avs. Formerly the Quebec Nordiques, which joined the NHL in the 1979 WHA merger. This is the league's second venture in Denver (the Rockies became the New Jersey Devils in 1982). Had a strong, physical, bitter rivalry with the Red Wings in the '90s when both were good. The Avs won two Stanley Cups, in 1996 (in their first season in the new city!) and 2001. The team of Joe Sakic. When the Avs won their second Cup, it was Ray Bourque's final NHL game. As the Nordiques, they were best known for playing in the shadow of the Habs, their heated rivalry with Buffalo, and for drafting Eric Lindros, whose subsequent trade to Philadelphia (without having played a game for Quebec) became the building blocks for the Avs' first Stanley Cup run. After some time being bottom feeders, they saw a resurgence in 2013–14, lead by two key players of the SC runs, Sakic himself as GM, and goalie Patrick Roy as coach. After Roy was fired, 2016-17 marked an absolute Rock Bottom, winning only 22 games and after the lottery picking only fourth in the draft. The Avs still managed to rebound quickly, going to the playoffs the following four seasons, and have since 2020 a strong, high-scoring team. Finally managed a run in 2022, clinching the Cup after a tough series with an equally high powered though badly injured Tampa Bay Lightning team, denying them a three-peat.

Dallas Stars

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The Dallas Stars: formerly the Minnesota North Stars. One of the teams created in the 1967 Expansion. Faced several ownership issues in Minnesota, including a merger with another failed team in 1978 (the Oakland/Bay Area Seals/California (Golden) Seals/Cleveland Barons), and a threat to move the team to San Jose before the merger was dissolved with the formation of the Sharks. Despite leaving a hockey-rich market in 1993, the Stars have surprisingly thrived in Dallas, winning the Cup in 1999 (although the nature of the Cup-winning goal remains a point of contention, especially in Buffalo). They began an up-and-down resurgence starting in 2013, with several off-season trades, including stars Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, and Alexander Radulov, as well as former Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop, before acquiring Sharks stalwart Joe Pavelski and longtime Duck Corey Perry prior to a run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020. And even as those stars began to fade, the emergence of new superstars such as Jason Robertson has extended their window of contention well into the 2020s. They really don't like the Colorado Avalanche dating back to their competitive rivalry in the late 90s or Minnesota Wild due to lingering feelings after having run off with their old team.

Minnesota Wild

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The Minnesota Wild: awarded as a 2000 expansion team largely as an apology for allowing the North Stars to be hijacked to Dallas. Helps that the Wild ownership has been far more committed to the local market than any of the Stars' owners ever were, having retired #1 as a tribute to the hockey fans of Minnesota at the first Wild game. Until 2009 they didn't have a permanent captain (the position was rotated among the players). Once held one of the more unusual streaks in the game—they won all of their home openers until finally dropping one in 2013. Also, they have the punniest chant in the league thanks to their team's name. Their on-ice success has been limited, though - they've only made one Conference Finals appearance, in 2003, where they scored just one goal in four games against white-hot Ducks goalie Jean-Sébastien Giguère. After two first-round exits later in the decade, they became regular playoff contenders in the The New '10s after signing star forward Zach Parise and top-flite defenseman Ryan Suter in 2012, but advanced past the first round only twice in this time. The twin 13-year, $98 million contracts given to the duo eventually proved more burdensome than the value of their talents, especially as they entered their mid-30s, leading to buyouts for both just before the Seattle Expansion Draft in 2021.^note some analysts speculated a motivating factor was the memory of the Vegas Expansion Draft, where the team was forced to expose another top defenseman in Matt Dumba due to the No-Movement Clauses held by Suter and Parise; to retain him, they worked out an agreement with the Golden Knights that resulted in role-player Eric Haula leaving instead...alongside the team's top offensive prospect at the time, Alex Tuch. Especially for an offense-challenged team like the Wild, this was a hard blow Until 2021-22, the team had never had a 100-point scorer; Russian superstar Kirill Kaprizov, drafted with a late pick years earlier, finally reached the mark in his second^note first non-abbreviated season in the Twin Cities. They really do not like the Dallas Stars.

Nashville Predators

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The Nashville Predators: an expansion team from 1998, born out of a failed attempt at relocating the 1995 Cup Champions New Jersey Devils. The team had financial issues during its early years, to the extent that there was an attempt in 2007 to move them to Hamilton, Ontario and then to Kansas City, Missouri. This was not helped by the organizational philosophy of "building from the goal out", with scoring secondary to great goaltending and defensive play; it wins games and has led to them making the playoffs rather consistently, but doesn't make for exciting play that can draw fans in. Their best era thus far was the late 2010s, where their feared, high-scoring defensive core (consisting of Roman Josi, P. K. Subban^note who replaced Shea Weber, their former captain who was also a high-scoring defenseman, Ryan Ellis, and Mattias Ekholm — all of which were considered top-pairing-caliber defensemen) and the play of goalie Pekka "Too Good Right Now" Rinne led to a Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2017 and a Presidents' Trophy in 2018; they infamously raised three banners for the latter (two of which were completely redundant "Central Division" and "Western Conference" banners), earning them the unyielding mockery of the league. Their team name has also been a subject of jokes, due to the double meaning of the word "predator"; in particular, their "Preds in the Community" outreach initiative was so widely ridiculed that it inspired a Saturday Night Live skit. Known for their numerous bizarre fan traditions, including throwing catfish on the ice, extended goalie chant after every single Nashville goal (even empty net goals!), and taking sledgehammers to cars painted in their opponents' colors during the playoffs.^note However, when the Predators faced the Winnipeg Jets in 2018, the Preds used a single prop plane instead; also as a Take That! against the Jets, the plane featured the logo of their past identity, the Atlanta Thrashers, likely to rally former Thrashers fans who switched to the Predators. They despise the Chicago Blackhawks, and also have very little love for the Detroit Red Wings^note their catfish-throwing tradition was invented as a counter to the Red Wings throwing octopi on the ice, Dallas Stars, and Anaheim Ducks.

Also of note is that the Predators are playing a major role in bringing hockey to Tennessee State University, the city's (and state's) largest HBCU.^note "Historically black colleges and universities", institutions created before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifically to educate African Americans TSU launched men's and women's club teams in 2024–25, with the men starting NCAA Division I play in 2026–27, making it the first HBCU ever to sponsor hockey as a varsity sport.

St. Louis Blues

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The St. Louis Blues: one of the teams created in the 1967 expansion, they were the team with the longest Cup drought since its inception - a whopping fifty-two years - before finally securing victory in 2019 in spectacular comeback fashion, having clawed their way out of dead last in the league at the start of 2019. Prior to that, they made the Finals in their first three seasons (due largely to divisional alignments of the time guaranteeing one of the 1967 expansion teams facing an Original Six team in the Finals), only to be swept each and every time (twice by the Canadiens, once by the Bruins^note in which the famous Flying Orr goal that finished the sweep of the Blues in the 1970 Finals has haunted the fanbase and the City of St. Louis for over 50 years, was the main motivation for their 2019 Cup run). They were once owned by Ralston Purina (who penny-pinched the hell out of the team), and nearly moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan before a new owner was found that would keep the team in St. Louis.^note The preceding year was so bad for them, though, that the arena got padlocked and they didn't even participate in the draft. Brett Hull had his best years as a Blue. They have a notable rivalry with the Chicago Blackhawks and another developing one with the Boston Bruins ^note which first dates back to their cities' first championship matchup between the Baseball Cardinals and Red Sox in 1946, the Bruins and Blues' first Final matchup in 1970, and due to Boston/New England's dominance against them in the 2000s and The New '10s which finally ended with the Blues beating the Bruins in 2019, ending Boston's dominance. The St. Louis Blues are also the only team to have an organist play their goal song live after every goal.

Utah Mammoth

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The Utah Mammoth is technically the newest team in the league, but the truth of the matter is that they are the result of the Arizona Coyotes' relocation. After years of instability with finding an arena in the Phoenix area, a deal was made between Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith and Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo, where the Coyotes' roster and front office were given to the new Utah team, while the Yotes would be deactivated until they get a new arena up and running within the following five years.^note However, Meruelo would relinquish his franchise rights only two months after the Coyotes' hockey assets were sold, rending the reactivation deal null and void. For any fans of the National Football League, this was essentially a hockey version of what happened between the original Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens back in 1995. For their first season, the team didn't have a permanent name, which lasted the whole 2024-25 season while a real identity was drawn up, à la the Washington Football Team. It was always known that it would have its regional moniker named after the entire state of Utah (much like the Jazz) instead of Salt Lake City. On May 8, 2024, Smith put up a fan poll on what the new name should be, giving a list of 20 potential names; by late January 2025, the list was trimmed down to three finalists: "Mammoth", "Outlaws", or keeping the "Utah Hockey Club" name.^note During the voting period, "Yeti" was the presumed frontrunner among fans and even some players; however, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected the application for "Utah Yeti" on the grounds that it could potentially conflict with the cooler/drinkware manufacturer Yeti. Also, during the final voting, "Wasatch", named in reference to the mountain range that runs through northern and central Utah, was briefly put up as a potential finalist, despite it never appearing on any of the prior polls. On May 7, 2025, the team's permanent name and logo were revealed to be the Mammoth. The NHL has told Smith that the Delta Center, home to the Jazz, will need hockey-specific upgrades; the Utah state government plans to chip in close to $1 billion towards upgrades to the Delta Center and its surrounding area as part of SLC's upcoming hosting of the 2034 Winter Olympics, more than half of which will go towards the arena itself. The renovations to Delta Center are planned to be completed in phases over multiple off-seasons to allow the Jazz and Mammoth to play their regular season (and postseason if necessary) home contests in the Delta Center, similar to how Madison Square Garden was renovated during the early 2010s.

Winnipeg Jets

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The Winnipeg Jets: formerly the Atlanta Thrashers. On May 31, 2011, the team was sold and moved to Winnipeg^note The second time a team moved from Atlanta, the first being the Flames in 1980. Many Atlanta hockey fans were not necessarily against the Coyotes staying in Arizona or even the return of an NHL team to Winnipeg (at least before True North came knocking on the Thrashers' door); however, most believe that the wrong team had moved to Winnipeg in 2011. While nearly all Atlanta hockey fans blame Atlanta Spirit, the Thrashers' ex-ownership group, for the team's demise, some also accuse the NHL of seemingly violating its own bylaws, with the league making virtually no good faith efforts to keep the Thrashers in Atlanta when they had two seasons to resolve the Coyotes' situation. Since then, the Coyotes had remained under the near-perennial threat of relocation, with the team's hockey assets ultimately being transferred to Utah, while the Coyotes franchise went dormant. for the next season, resurrecting the previous team's name due to overwhelming fan support for it (this has also led to a massive Continuity Snarl, as the history of the original Winnipeg Jets is entrenched in the backstory of the now-defunct Arizona Coyotes,^note Meanwhile, the NFL's Cleveland Browns, the NBA's Charlotte Hornets, and MLS's San Jose Earthquakes either retained (Browns and Quakes) or retroactively reclaimed (Hornets) the history of their original franchises after their respective relocations to Baltimore, New Orleans, and Houston. Additionally, Seattle retains the rights to the history of its former NBA team, the Seattle SuperSonics, after that team's move to Oklahoma City. Making matters worse, the Coyotes were to retain the original history of the Jets with their deactivation in a similar manner to the Browns and Sonics; however, with the Coyotes' reactivation deal off the table, True North may petition the league to allow them to retroactively reclaim the original Jets' history. a severely contentious issue among Jets purists). The Jets play in the smallest standalone market among the Big Four sports leagues and are one of two major pro teams based in a metropolitan area with less than one million residents.^note While the Green Bay metropolitan area is less than half the population of Winnipeg's, the NFL considers Milwaukee as part of the Packers' home market, given the team had historically played one to three home games there annually from 1933—94. Season tickets for Winnipeg's 2011–12 season sold out in 17 minutes. The team then remained two years geographically miscast in the now-defunct Southeast Division^note OK, Winnipeg is in the southeastern part of Manitoba. before the league and the players' union accepted a new realignment. Prior to the 2017-18 season, the franchise only made the playoffs twice, getting swept both times, once in their only appearance as the Thrashers in 2007 against the Rangers and again in their first appearance as the Jets in 2015 against the Ducks. The Jets finally won their first playoff game against the Wild on April 11, 2018, and the Jets subsequently won the series 4-1, marking the first time since 1987 that a Winnipeg-based team advanced to the Second Round, which it did win against the Predators, making it to the Western Conference Finals (and thus the league semi-finals) for the first time in the history of either incarnation of the Jets. Even better, the Jets managed to score a massive upset in the 2021 play-offs by sweeping the McDavid/Draisaitl-led Oilers in a series that went so well for the Jets that it caused serious concerns about the Oilers as a franchise - although being swept by the Canadiens in the following round raised questions as for whether the Jets were good or simply lucky. Those questions have deepened in the seasons since due to them straddling the playoff line^note missed by a handful of points in '21-'22; squeaked in as the Second Wild Card in '22-'23, only to get crushed by Vegas, the eventual Cup champs, in the opening round while the coaching staff turned over,^note the head coach that oversaw their 2018 and 2021 successes, Paul Maurice, resigned his post in fall 2021 (he later joined the Panthers and helped engineer their 2023 Finals run); interim Dave Lowry was let go at season's end; Rick Bowness took the reins for 2022-23 after an attempt to hire Barry Trotz fell through rumors of locker room strife swirled and multiple top players insinuated their desires to leave the team. Compounding the locker room drama, the Jets have been struggling with declining attendance since the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2021–24, the Jets had lost over a quarter of their pre-pandemic season ticket base, putting the long-term viability of the Jets into question, considering that most of the Jets' season ticket holders are individuals rather than corporations. However, both Commissioner Gary Bettman and Jets Chairman Mark Chipman have assured Jets fans that the NHL has no intentions of leaving Winnipeg for a second time, lest they have egg on their faces. In the 2024–25 season, the Jets clinched not only their first divisional title, a feat never achieved during the original Jets' NHL tenure, but also the top record in the NHL; however, the Jets fell victim to the "Presidents' Trophy curse", losing in the Second Round to the Stars in six games.

This division contains the westernmost teams in the NHL, and due to having three California teams, has the greatest concentration of teams from a single state or province in one division. As the Metro Division is an expanded Patrick Division, the Pacific Division is an expanded Smythe Division as it existed from 1991 to 1993, minus the original Winnipeg Jets/Arizona Coyotes.

Anaheim Ducks

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The Anaheim Ducks are an oddball among NHL teams. To get it out of the way, yes, they are named after The Mighty Ducks, were originally called the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and Disney were even the ones who founded the team and operated them for about 13 years before the Samueli family purchased the franchise, and they continue to operate it. They loathe the Los Angeles Kings, whom they battle in the "Freeway Faceoff", and they also despise the San Jose Sharks, Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and of all teams, the Nashville Predators. Got off to something of a hot start in the 90s thanks to drafting young hotshot Paul Kariya and then making an extremely savvy trade for Teemu Selanne that ultimately led to so much of their success for the next nearly twenty years. After failing to win the Stanley Cup in 03, the Ducks managed a return to the Final in 2007 behind the defensive power of Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, and George Parros, backed by steel wall Jean-Sebastian Giguere, and powered by Selanne and young faces Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, the Ducks brought Cali her maiden Cup in 2007 after a demolition of the Ottawa Senators. The Ducks haven't returned to the Cup since, and for years, had a reputation of playing hard-nose defensive hockey that carried them to the Western Conference Final twice in three years in the mid-10s, but never quite got them there. Entered a long rebuild after getting swept in 2018 that saw the team shed veteran players and say goodbye to Getzlaf via retirement and Perry via buyout, but has seen them pick up an exciting youth core including the likes of Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Jackson Lacombe, and Beckett Sennecke, who famously was picked well ahead of expectation and was seen mouthing "What the fuck?" on camera in sheer disbelief.

On-ice history aside, Anaheim are highly storied off-ice for such a relatively new team. Their original white, eggplant, and jade uniforms and the original logo◊ were widely considered to be one of the greatest uniforms and logos in sports, and their retiring in 2006 in favor of a rebrand was met with sadness from fans and rivals alike, and when it was announced in 2024 that the Ducks were returning to a more polished version of the original logo, there was much rejoicing all over the league. They also have infamously bad luck in NHL draft lotteries, having never won one and having finished second twice, both times in drafts featuring generational talents. This will be guaranteed to anger Ducks fans, as many of them feel both times, the draft lottery was rigged against them ²⁰⁰⁵In 2005, Pittsburgh won the Crosby sweepstakes when there were mutterings of the team relocating, and it is believed the league gave them Crosby to keep the team where it was. The Ducks would draft Bobby Ryan. ²⁰²³In 2023, the Chicago Blackhawks would win the Connor Bedard sweepstakes amid a heavy controversy regarding Kyle Beach being sexually abused by members of the coaching staff in the middle of their run to the 2010 Stanley Cup. It is believed the league gave them Bedard due to being a better market than Anaheim, an Original 6 team, and to try and move on from the scandal, which was hanging over the team. The Ducks would draft Leo Carlsson. Their mascot Wild Wing also accidentally set himself on fire when attempting to jump over a fire pit, but tripped and fell into it instead.

Calgary Flames

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The Calgary Flames: once home to one of the best moustaches in the league, belonging to Hall of Famer Lanny McDonald. Major rival to the Edmonton Oilers, as part of the Battle of Alberta, and also have another big one in the Vancouver Canucks. The rivalry with the former was most heated in the 1980s, when both teams had stockpiled incredible amounts of talent, the Oilers taking most of the series versus the Flames. (Although in 1986, the Oilers did the Flames a favor by scoring on themselves in Game Seven). They made it to the final round before losing to Montreal. In 1989, the Flames won the Cup without the Oilers on the way... who lost to Wayne Gretzky's new team, the Kings. The Flames swept Gretzky and the Kings in the next round. They are the only team to defeat the Canadiens at the Montreal Forum for the Stanley Cup. ^note  Every other time the Canadiens lost the Cup, they lost on the road.) Also broke Canada's heart when they couldn't seal the deal back in 2004 — although there was a potential Cup-winning goal scored by the Flames late in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final that is still a sore point for Flames fans today. The franchise started as the Atlanta Flames in 1972, and they moved northwest in 1980. Lately, they have been unable to amount to much, qualifying for the playoffs just four times since 2009-10 - with the first two having Calgary getting shown the door by the Anaheim Ducks, against whom they had a spectacularly-long losing streak away from home up until 2017 - and winning a round only in half of those. The Flames' long-time home of the Saddledome hosted several events in the 1988 Winter Olympics; however, it is one of the oldest arenas in the league and the oldest among the seven Canadian teams. After several false starts, the city and Flames reached an agreement in April 2023 to build Scotia Place a block north to replace the Saddledome. Plans were approved in October, while groundbreaking took place in late July 2024. The new arena is projected to open prior to the 2027–28 NHL season. In addition to their major rivalries with Edmonton and Vancouver, they have a dislike of the Montreal Canadiens (due to splitting their Cup Finals matchup with during the 80s'), they also have a less-bitter rivalry with the Tampa Bay Lightning dating back to 2004, mainly over the controversy of whether a potential Cup winning goal was scored by the Flames in the third period of Game 6, with the score tied. ^note The Flames only needed one win for the Cup. Play was not stopped at that point. As play continued, the officials declared that a review wasn't possible under the rules at that time. The game went to overtime, with the Lightning scoring to force game 7, which they won.

Edmonton Oilers

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The Edmonton Oilers: the last surviving team from the World Hockey Association that remains in its original city, and the only one of the four that joined the NHL (Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets^note Not the current Jets; this version of the franchise became the Arizona Coyotes, Hartford Whalers) that never actually won a WHA title. The team most people think of when they talk about Wayne Gretzky. Once had an epic rivalry with the Los Angeles Kings during the '80s, but it was more one-sided in favor of the former; the Oilers won the Cup five times in seven years (1984, '85, '87, '88, and '90; the winning goal that eliminated them in 1986 was an own-goal in game 7 of the second round. Gretzky was traded in the 1988 off-season, and they were eliminated by his new team, the Los Angeles Kings). Simply put, they were an offensive juggernaut in the '80s, shattering records. The '90s, though, were a different story: changing economics forced management to dismantle the team (by the start of the 1992 season, most of the players from the dynasty years were gone), though they did make the playoffs somewhat consistently in the late 1990s. They last made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2006, only to be defeated by the Carolina Hurricanes in the seventh game. Since then, they've had a string of last or next-to-last-place finishes in their division (including finishing dead last in the league twice in a row), and subsequently a lot of high draft picks — most notably, four first-overall in a period of six years between 2010 and 2015. And yet the accumulation of young talent didn't translate into a winning season until 2016–17 (which made the rest of the league kind of hate the Oilers … but not their fans, whom they agree deserve a break someday), but the following season saw them miss the playoffs by a considerable margin, leaving that bright future in doubt due to big contracts for Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Andrej Sekera taking away a lot of cap space. These problems only became more apparent when in the 2021 playoffs, their first legitimate postseason since 2016^note The 2020 Play-in round technically doesn't count as a play-off appearance, the team got swept by the universally agreed inferior Jets franchise, including an embarrassing Leaf-like blowing of a 4-1 lead in Game 3. The series revealed just how easily the Oilers' main strategy of "Pass to McDavid and see what happens" could be countered and cast serious doubts on not only any future playoff viability but even whether McDavid would even stay in Edmonton or ask for a trade, though they proved many doubters wrong by advancing to the Western Conference Finals the following year (where they got swept by the eventual Cup winner Colorado Avalanche) and would finally break the mold two years later by advancing to the 2024 Stanley Cup Final where they played the Florida Panthers in a mirror version of the 2004 Stanley Cup Final.^note which had both Florida's and Edmonton's respective rivals in Tampa Bay and Calgary After quickly falling into a 0–3 hole, they miraculously won games 4 through 6 to even the series up and force a game 7, unfortunately losing it in a heartbreaking fashion. They returned to the Final in 2025, only to suffer a second series loss to the Panthers.

Los Angeles Kings

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The Los Angeles Kings: one of the teams created in the 1967 expansion. The team traded for Wayne Gretzky in 1988, a move which probably saved the Kings but almost caused the Canadian government to interfere (Serious Business doesn't begin to describe hockey in Canada) and would ultimately lead to the rise of expansion teams in the The '90s ^note including the Kings' respective rivals in the Sharks and the Ducks. Was the NHL's first team in a warm-weather city. Has a rather large and loyal fanbase. Stanley Cup champs of 2012 and 2014, both runs seeing some impressive victories over heavily-favored opposition (including a Second Round reverse sweep of the San Jose Sharks). Their regular season prowess leaves a lot to be desired, as in their fifty-one years of existence, they have only managed a single division title, but when playing as underdogs, the Kings often play far better than they do as favorites. Have a fierce rivalry with next-door neighbors Anaheim (The "Freeway Faceoff") and an equally-deep rivalry with the San Jose Sharks up the road. In recent years, a lesser rivalry with the Golden Knights also developed. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are huge fans of the team, and have made pre-game videos that are played at Kings games where Eric Cartman mocks the other team and tells them to "respect our authoritah!". ^note Yes, this even includes the Colorado Avalanche, which is ironically set in the home state the boys live in and the series is set in. After a nearly a 3-decade absence, the Kings would revive their Gretzky-era Chevrolet look in time for the 2024-25 season. Recent seasons have seen them exit the first round, almost always at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers.

San Jose Sharks

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The San Jose Sharks: the first team of the 1990s expansion, born out of a failed attempt to relocate the North Stars to the Bay Area, and one of the more successful examples from a business perspective. They had a reputation of doing well in the regular season but not so well come playoff time; they made it to the Western Conference Finals, in 2004, 2010 and 2011, but lost in six games to Calgary, four games to Chicago and five to Vancouver, respectively. In 2014, they had a 3-0 lead over the Los Angeles Kings in the Second Round, only for the Kings to come back and win. In 2016, however, they finally won the Western Conference Finals after beating the St. Louis Blues in six games, but lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Penguins in six games. As such, sports media and many fans seem to feel the "choker" label no longer applies (the teams that beat them in the 2016 Finals and eliminated them in 2010, 2011, and 2014 were all extremely potent^note Aside from the 2011 Canucks, who were the best team all season long until losing the seventh game of the Finals, the other four all got the Cup.), but popular opinion being what it is, they will likely be "chokers" until they win a Cup. Have announced a long rebuild following their 2019 playoff loss by first ultimately trading longtime Shark Patrick Marleau to the Maple Leafs, allowing Joe Pavelski to sign with the Dallas Stars ^note who alongside former rival Ducks Corey Perry would lead to the Stars to the 2020 Finals, allowing Joe Thornton to bolt for the Toronto Maple Leafs and trading away longtime Shark defenseman Brent Burns to the Carolina Hurricanes. The 2025-26 season saw the rebuild start to produce results, lead by 2024 first overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini, with other young stars like forwards Will Smith (no, not the movie and music star or the baseball player) and William Eklund and goaltender Yaroslav Askarov forming a solid core with a ton of potential for the team's future. In addition to geographic rivalries with the Kings and the Ducks, the Sharks have developed a very fierce rivalry with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Seattle Kraken

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The Seattle Kraken: Seattle's place in hockey extends much further back into the earliest days of the sport, but the state of Washington had gone without a major-league hockey team for over 80 years before 2018, when a group of businessmen (including TV/film producer Jerry Bruckheimer) secured a proposal to expand the NHL back into the American side of the Pacific Northwest, with the name and logos being announced of July 2020. Much like Vegas' expansion bid, Seattle's bid was chosen over reviving the Quebec Nordiques because of a weak loonie^note Canadian dollar, from the presence of a loon (as in the bird) on one of the faces of the dollar coin as well as moving Columbus back to the Western Conference. In contrast to Vegas' initial season ticket drive, though, which had sold 5,000 deposits in the first day and a half but required more than a month to reach the league-mandated 10,000 to secure their bid, Seattle reached the 10K mark in 12 minutes, and had 25,000 deposits in about 75 minutes. The name and even the team colors themselves were a source of major speculation, as they didn't immediately reveal them, and several major candidates for the name were bandied about for two straight years, with the Kraken name always being seen as sort of an Awesome, but Impractical choice, even being outright denied being the name... right up until its reveal as the team name. ^note  Seattle Sockeyes for a long time was seen as the favorite... until everyone learned a romance novelist already had the trademark on it which she used for the fictional hockey team her novels centered on. Despite geographic proximity to Vancouver north of the border, support for the team exploded almost the moment the team was announced, with even fans of other teams showing excitement for Seattle's entry into the league. Their arrival also has huge implications for the National Basketball Association, given there has been a clamor to bring a team back, but no word on that front yet. Nevertheless, the city was ready to join the league, and officially hit the ice in the 2021–22 season.

• A large part of the hype for the Kraken might be the fact that they've been put in the same division as the previous expansion team, the Golden Knights, whose out of nowhere Cup run in their first season of existence placed high expectations on the Seattle team before it even hit the ice. The comparisons between the two teams' entry drafts even caused some fans to engage in revisionist history about the Vegas draft, criticizing Seattle for not drafting a Cup-winning team off the bat when not even Vegas thought they'd do much with the team they drafted. The League also appear to be leaning in on this since one of the first games to be played in the 2021–22 season was Seattle at Vegas (Vegas won 4–3). For better or worse, the hype was mostly unfounded and the Kraken had what could be considered a typical expansion season, finishing at the bottom of the division while struggling with team chemistry, underwhelming goaltending^note their starter, 2021 Vezina finalist Philipp Grubauer, was considered to be "the prize of free agency" at the position after two great seasons with the Avalanche, only to not only flounder behind a bad defense in Seattle but post advanced metrics that suggested he was letting through more goals than most other goalies would with the same defense; supporting this is the number of times he landed on blooper reels for giving up "soft" goals and other gaffes and suspect coaching.^note Ironically, they were in the hunt for former Vegas coach Gerard Gallant, who was fired in early 2020, only to sign widely-criticized former Flyers coach Dave Hakstol after Gallant went to the Rangers. They had a much better sophomore season in 2022-23, which marked their first playoff appearance, triumphing over the defending champions, the Avalanche, before falling in the seventh game of the second round to the Stars, who themselves fell to the Golden Knights on the latter's way to their first Stanley cup win. So, time will tell if they can prove themselves to be as consistently fearsome as their namesake.
• In true idiosyncratic Seattle form, the Kraken's home rink broke new ground in arena naming schemes. Most arenas and stadiums in American sports had been named by municipalities and local owners up until around the mid 1990s, when a trend began where naming rights began being sold to businesses that named those locals after themselves as a form of showing support for local teams and as advertising. Seattle-based megacorp Amazon looked to follow suit when they bought the rights to Seattle's new arena while it was under construction, but took a much different direction. Under their guidelines, much of the arena was redesigned for environmental friendliness in mind, in line with the locale's new name, Climate Pledge Arena, the first pro sports location in North America to be named for a pledge or slogan towards a social cause.^note Though not the first ever. The Stockholm-area stadium that serves as home to the Sweden men's national football/soccer team (and is also used for many domestic matches) was originally known as Swedbank Arena, but that bank renamed it Friends Arena in 2012 after a nonprofit organization devoted to stopping school bullying. Swedbank is one of that organization's major financial supporters. The sponsorship contract ran out in July 2024, after which Norwegian hotel company Strawberry took over. In the US, when the University of Kentucky completed a new baseball park in 2018, the Kentucky Farm Bureau, an organization that lobbies for the state's farmers and also has a good-sized insurance business, bought the naming rights and donated them to a state agency, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. The ballpark's name, Kentucky Proud Park, reflects the brand name used by said agency in its marketing program for Kentucky-made products.

Vancouver Canucks

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The Vancouver Canucks: unusually for a hockey team, for a couple years their goalie (Roberto Luongo) was captain.^note Although this is considered unofficial by League rules, which have prohibited goalies from wearing the "C" on their sweater for over 60 years. He wore it on his mask instead. Has reached the Stanley Cup Final three times and lost, twice to teams from New York (Islanders in '82, Rangers in '94) and to the Boston Bruins in 2011. The 1978–85 "Flying-V" sweater is widely considered to be one of the ugliest uniforms in League history ^note although the Flying Skate logo that came with the set became iconic to the point of being used for the team's 50th anniversary season and is currently an alternate look, though some would argue that they've never really had good luck with uniforms. Home to the Sedins before their retirement, twin brothers with such uncanny chemistry that "Henrik to Daniel … Goal!" was one of the most common sounds in the league. Some people consider them to be rather creepy. Their last two Cup losses sparked riots in Downtown Vancouver. They really don't like Calgary; the bad blood peaked from the mid 80s to the mid 90s with playoff showdowns. Both teams started falling apart in subsequent seasons, but the rivalry was rekindled for a second, much briefer period starting in the 2003–04 season. The rivalry cooled off in 2007 or so, as the Flames on ice record declined. The Canucks moved on to Chicago as a main rival. The two teams met in the first round of the 2015 playoffs, igniting the rivalry for a third time. The tradition of waving towels, that started in hockey with Canucks fans, had its origins from when the two teams met in the 1982 playoffs; but the story really starts when Chicago's former owner "Dollar Bill" Wirtz died in 2007, and his son Rocky inherited the club, ending his father's sabotage and turning the team into a powerhouse. His touch was immediate: the Canucks met the Big Bad Blackhawks, and their physical agitators like Dave Bolland and Dustin Byfuglien, in the playoffs three years in a row. After being eliminated by Chicago in 2009 and 2010 with fairly lopsided defeats, they narrowly thwarted an almighty upset, a 3–0 to 4–3 reverse-sweep, in 2011. As if it couldn't have gotten any more white-knuckle, Jonathan Toews forced overtime with two minutes left in Game 7. But, Alex Burrows managed to slay the dragon, and the city breathed a collective sigh of relief. These playoff matchups featured a prickly relationship between head coaches Alain Vigneault and Joel Quenneville (who was said to "out-coach" AV) and even allegations of biased officiating, although the Canucks' problems with the refs stretch back all the way to "Auger-gate". After Game 6 in 2011, then-general manager Mike Gillis publicly criticized the series' officiating, which is a huge no-no in the league. He was slapped with an undisclosed fine for his trouble (but not as much as in recent years^note Most of Chicago's physical players that gave Vancouver such a hard time have left the club, and the two teams haven't met in the playoffs since.), and they absolutely despise Boston.^note Besides losing to the Bigger, Badder Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals, the bad blood persists because the physical players that Canucks met in 2011 are mostly still there, including Chára (who had since left for Washington and eventually finished his career with the Islanders before signing a one-day contract to retire a Bruin), Marchand, and local boy (and WHL Vancouver Giants alumnus) Milan Lucic, prior to his move to Los Angeles, Edmonton and then the equally hated rival Calgary, before briefly returning to Boston. Poor Lucic seems to be a magnet for hate in his own hometown. When the two teams met next, there was a bench clearing brawl, and six weeks later his family's church was vandalized. In a December 2013 game, the Canucks won at Rogers Arena 6–2, and later that night Lucic had a drink thrown on him and was then punched three times. Afterwards, he said he was fed up with his hometown and could no longer defend it. The despised Brad Marchand was the last remaining player from the Bruins Cup championship team, until he was traded in 2025 amid a rough season for the Bruins. Until recently, they had an unfortunate reputation for flopping and playing dirty, which only waned after three very disappointing seasons (they went 1–8 in the 2012 and 2013 playoffs, and missed the playoffs in 2014 entirely) and a personnel change that saw the addition of Trevor Linden^note President of Hockey Operations, Jim Benning^note General Manager and Willie Desjardins^note Head Coach to the organization. Despite this, the hate for the Canucks in Alberta will always endure.

• However, all three were widely criticized during their tenures, with the Canucks still failing to make the playoffs (aside from a brief first round appearance in 2015). Desjardins was eventually relieved of his duties in 2017, Linden was pushed to resign following a power struggle with Benning in 2018, and Benning would be fired (along with Desjardins' replacement, Travis Green) in December 2021. Linden and Benning's spots are now filled by Jim Rutherford^note President of hockey operations and Patrik Allvin^note General Manager. Green, meanwhile, would be succeeded as head coach by Bruce Boudreau, who quickly became a beloved fan favourite over the team's renewed success — until dwindling performance the very next season led to his own firing in January 2023. The controversial move paved the way for current bench boss Rick Tocchet, under whose tenure the team also saw success of its own; a strong finish in 2023-24 led Tocchet to become the team's first Jack Adams winner since 2006-07.
• Also known as the team who caused the NHL to start cracking down on fights and enforcers due to one of its enforcers, Todd Bertuzzi, sucker punching Colorado Avalanche's Steve Moore from behind and driving his head into the ice, basically ending his career right then and there. The decision to allow Bertuzzi back into the league after a relatively small suspension is considered one of the league's permanent black eyes and is still highly controversial to this day.

Vegas Golden Knights

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The Vegas Golden Knights: One of the newest teams in the league. As part of the 2013 conference realignment, the two conferences were set with an imbalanced number of teams on order to allow for future expansion. The league officially began accepting bids in 2015 with proposals from Las Vegas and Quebec City, and Vegas was awarded a franchise in 2016 that began play at the new T-Mobile Arena on the Las Vegas Strip in the 2017–18 season.^note Quebec's bid was rejected largely due to requiring an existing east team to move to the west and the weak Canadian dollar. An initial season ticket drive prior to the official bid earned commitments from over 14,000 people. The Golden Knights are the first Big Four sports team in the city's history, it previously being the largest metro area in the country without one.^note Vegas also became the new home of the NFL's Oakland Raiders in 2020 with the opening of Allegiant Stadium, and MLB's Oakland Athletics have announced a move to Vegas no later than 2028. Billionaire owner Bill Foley appears dead set on avoiding most of the issues that have plagued Sun Belt teams in the past^note especially the perpetually unstable Coyotes and so far has been taking the right steps in doing so, including hiring longtime Capitals general manager George McPhee. Before the team was announced, Foley publicly stated that it would either be Desert Knights, Golden Knights, or Silver Knights, and not any name related to gambling, per league requirements. His original preference was Black Knights, as a nod to his days at West Point, but he wasn't able to claim that name.^note The team's ownership group calls itself Black Knight Sports & Entertainment. Sharing a conference with the Blackhawks didn't help him get the name. On November 22, 2016, Foley officially revealed the name and logos of the new team as the Golden Knights, and in June of 2017, their expansion draft was held, making Vegas the new home of 3-time Stanley Cup champion Marc-André Fleury, former Nashville centerpiece James Neal, and former St. Louis Blue David Perron. Vegas then rewrote what success for an expansion team in their inaugural season means, defying the odds and became the first expansion team across all four major sports to finish with not only a winning season, but also clinched the Pacific Division title, battled with Nashville, Winnipeg, Tampa Bay, and Boston for the President's Trophy, and reached the Stanley Cup Final, all in their first year of existence. However, despite their best efforts, the Knights fell to Washington in the Cup Finals after winning just one Final game. Although the Arizona Coyotes were originally poised to be their rivals, Vegas sees the San Jose Sharks as their main rival instead given the physically intense matches between the two and Arizona's move to the Central Division once the Seattle Kraken began play and took their place in the Pacific Division. In addition, they have lesser but still fierce rivalries with the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings. They finally missed the playoffs for the first time in the 2021–22 season, only to come roaring back the following season, in which they captured the Stanley Cup in 5 games over the Florida Panthers, bringing the city of Las Vegas its first ever championship as a "Big Four" league sports city^note The Las Vegas Aces in the WNBA won the city its first ever professional sports championship the previous year in only their sixth year in existence. Vegas quickly gained a reputation for its extremely aggressive front office and fondness for blockbuster trades, for better or worse; this was not helped by a very public falling-out with Fleury, who had become a fan favorite before being unceremoniously shipped off to Chicago. In true Las Vegas fashion, their home games are quite a performance, with a drum line, a cheerleading squad, and even an ice show with actors dressed as knights.

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is a controversial candidate for NHL expansion/relocation, given the city's prior history with the NHL, with both of its previous franchises moving to Canada. Most hockey fans, whether casual or hardcore, will resoundingly declare that Atlanta is undeserving of a third chance,^note Cities getting a third chance in a major pro sports league is rare but not unprecedented, as the NBA had failed twice in Chicago, MLB had failed twice in both Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the NFL had failed twice in both Cleveland and Los Angeles, and the CFL had failed twice in both Montreal and Ottawa. citing the lack of fan support as the reason for the failure of both the Flames and Thrashers. A common joke among many hockey fans is that expanding into Atlanta is the only way the NHL will ever add another Canadian team. However, most Atlanta hockey fans argue that the city was never given a fair shot in either case, rejecting the common "Atlanta can't support hockey" narrative as flawed and shallow. Those with insider knowledge state that the Flames' and Thrashers' on-ice performance and attendance issues were only symptoms and not the root cause behind the failure of both teams, specifically citing the Flames' economic issues and the Thrashers' dysfunctional ownership.

The Flames began play in 1972, primarily to keep the upstart World Hockey Association out of the then-newly built Omni Coliseum. The Flames were a decent team on the ice, although they had a very bad case of Every Year They Fizzle Out come the Stanley Cup playoffs, never making it out of the First Round. Like many of their expansion-era contemporaries, the Flames struggled financially due to the economic recession of the early 1970s as well as the bidding war between the NHL and WHA for players, leading to ballooning salaries that many owners couldn't afford. Flames' owner Tom Cousins, whose company had built the Omni and brought the NBA's Hawks to Atlanta, had most of his wealth tied to the Atlanta real estate market, and its downturn exacerbated his losses on the Flames; after failing to find a local buyer for the Flames, Cousins sold the team to a Calgary-based group led by Nelson Skalbania in 1980 for a then-record $16 million^note roughly $62.6 million in 2025 dollars to stave off bankruptcy. From 1992–96, in-between NHL franchises, Atlanta had a relatively successful minor league team in the defunct International Hockey League known as the Knights, winning the league's championship in their sophomore season. The Knights left for Quebec City, filling the void left by the Nordiques' relocation to Colorado, after their 1995–96 season because then-Hawks owner Ted Turner was bidding for an NHL expansion team^note While Turner bought the Hawks and operating rights to the Omni Coliseum from Tom Cousins in 1977, Turner did not buy the Flames as well, since he had bought the Braves of MLB just a year before, and he felt at the time that hockey didn't make for good TV programming., and after the league determined that the Omni was unsuitable even as a temporary venue due to its age and condition, a new arena, now known as State Farm Arena, had to built as a condition of being granted the Thrashers in 1997, with said new arena built on the footprint of its predecessor.

When the Thrashers started play in 1999, they struggled both on and off the ice; in their 11 seasons of play, the Thrashers finished dead last in the league twice within their first three seasons of existence and made the Stanley Cup playoffs only once, getting swept in the First Round by the New York Rangers in that lone appearance in 2007. The Thrashers had ownership troubles before they were even enfranchised; Ted Turner's media empire was acquired by Time Warner in 1996, and Time Warner themselves were subsequently acquired by AOL in 2001. Looking to recoup losses from the ill-fated AOL merger, Time Warner divested Turner's sports interests, selling the Thrashers, Hawks, and operating rights to State Farm (née Philips) Arena to a group called Atlanta Spirit in 2004, with some members of the group having ties to Turner. The group, originally divided across three different factions, was notorious for its legal in-fighting as well as neglecting the Thrashers in favor of the Hawks, as the group was never interested in the hockey club, looking to offload the team as soon as legally possible; Atlanta Spirit didn't even want the Thrashers as a tenant at Philips Arena, much less operate the team themselves. The group claimed they had lost over $130 million operating the Thrashers; however, many Thrashers fans accuse Atlanta Spirit of running the team on a shoestring budget as a means to deliberately sabotage the Thrashers' chances of succeeding in Atlanta. After buying out and settling lawsuits with an ex-partner in late 2010, Atlanta Spirit sold the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment in the 2011 off-season, becoming the current incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets. Atlanta Spirit allegedly refused any offers by parties wishing to keep the Thrashers in Atlanta, as the group wanted to maintain control of the Hawks and the operations to Philips Arena.^note However, just months after shipping the Thrashers off to Winnipeg, Atlanta Spirit attempted to sell a majority stake of the Hawks and arena operations to Alex Meruelo (who would subsequently run the Arizona Coyotes into the ground), but that deal fell through; Atlanta Spirit would eventually sell to a group led by Tony Ressler in 2015.

While most hockey traditionalists would rather see the NHL permanently dismiss Atlanta as a lost cause, many former Thrashers fans argue that the Atlanta market is too large for the league to ignore and believe that an NHL team can succeed in the Peach State under the right ownership, pointing to the recent successes of other teams in non-traditional markets. Both commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly have stated that the NHL is open to returning to Atlanta, noting that the metro area's demographics have changed significantly since the Thrashers' departure, and past circumstances shouldn't be a factor in determining the future viability of any market. As of March 2024, there are two competing proposals to bring an NHL franchise back to the Atlanta metro area; both groups intend to build an NHL-sized arena as part of a larger mixed-use development in or near the suburb of Alpharetta, 25 miles (40 km) north of downtown Atlanta.^note In both the Flames' and Thrashers' existence in Atlanta, the Hawks' ownership held the operating rights to the Omni Coliseum and State Farm Arena respectively, giving the basketball club higher scheduling priority; also, State Farm Arena was extensively remodeled in the late 2010s, making it no longer suitable to host an NHL team long term. In the Thrashers' case specifically, most Atlanta hockey fans live in the affluent northern suburbs and the even more affluent Buckhead district in the city's north, and downtown Atlanta's notorious traffic had significantly impacted attendance. One proposal is The Gathering at South Forsyth, led by businessman Vernon Krause, and the development is planned to be built on an undeveloped tract near the Forsyth–Fulton County line; as of June 2025, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners gave their final approval for the project, allowing Krause to make his pitch for expansion to the league. The other group, Alpharetta Sports and Entertainment, is led by former NHL player Anson Carter, and his group intends to redevelop the North Point Mall site; in May 2025, the city of Alpharetta and ASE agreed to jointly commission a feasibility study to see if the project would be viable. Carter is also a minority owner of the ECHL's Atlanta Gladiators, who have been based in Gwinnett County since 2003 and are the longest-operating pro hockey team in Georgia. Since 2022, the Gladiators have held an annual "Thrashers night", being one of the team's most popular promotions, implying that if/when the NHL decides to return to Atlanta, the Thrashers would be the likely frontrunner for the team name, despite the troubled history of the previous incarnation.

Despite the active push for expansion by both groups, the NHL isn't rushing the process to ensure that the third time really is the charm in Atlanta; alternatively, the league could be biding their time to find a potential expansion partner, likely either Houston or Phoenix, to at least maintain an even number of teams and keep the conferences balanced.

Austin, Texas

In June 2025, during the Board of Governors' post-SCF meeting, Austin, Texas was mentioned as one of two new potential candidates, the other being Indianapolis, Indiana, for expansion. The Texas state capital has been one of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S., and is the most populous city without a team in any of the traditional "Big Four" leagues; however, the city has been home to Austin FC of MLS since 2021. When combined with the nearby San Antonio metro area, home to the NBA's Spurs, the region is home to over 5 million residents, with the smaller but also fast-growing cities of New Braunfels and San Marcos bridging the 80-mile (130 km) gap along I-35 between the two metro areas. Austin's lack of major professional sports is historically due to the college sports juggernaut that is the University of Texas Longhorns, especially their football program. The Dallas Stars host their AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars, in the Austin suburb of Cedar Park. Despite Austin's growing population and large corporate presence, the significantly larger Houston metro area could be seen as the NHL's preferred market for adding a second team in the Lone Star State. Additionally, Austin's largest arena, the Longhorns' Moody Center, while a state-of-the-art venue, seats only 10,000 in its basketball configuration and also lacks ice-making equipment, meaning that a purpose-built NHL arena would be necessary.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Cincinnati was one of six cities^note along with Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Omaha, and Salt Lake City mentioned by Gary Bettman which had expressed interest in obtaining an NHL team during the league's 2024 All-Star Weekend. Cincinnati has had several pro hockey clubs at every level except for the NHL. The current and longest operating pro hockey team in Cincy is the Cyclones of the ECHL, who were established in 1990, moved up to the IHL in 1992, and subsequently moved back to the ECHL in 2001 after the IHL ceased operations. The city was also home to various AHL franchises from 1947–2005; the most recent, the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, co-existed with the Cyclones during their tenure. Cincy was also home to a WHA franchise in the latter half of that league's life; the Stingers lasted from 1975 to the end of the WHA in 1979, but they were one of the two surviving teams cut from the NHL–WHA merger.^note The other being the Birmingham Bulls. How did a WHA team end up in Alabama, you might ask? The Bulls were formerly known as the Toronto Toros (and originally the Ottawa Nationals during the WHA's inaugural season). The Toros moved to Birmingham in 1976 due to the infamous Leafs' owner Harold Ballard being openly hostile to the WHA, especially to a team playing in his barn as well as said team being owned by the son of his ex-business partner John Bassett. "Pal Hal" made the Toros' stay in Toronto as miserable as possible by being extremely petty; on top of charging exorbitant rent to use Maple Leaf Gardens, Ballard charged extra to make the arena's lighting system available and removed seat cushions from the home bench whenever the Leafs weren't playing. The biggest obstacle to Cincy being home to an NHL franchise, apart from the Columbus Blue Jackets being two hours northeast via I-71, is the city's largest indoor arena, the Heritage Bank Center^note Historically known as the Riverfront Coliseum, which was built in the mid-1970s and functionally obsolete by modern NHL standards; however, there are attempts to replace it with a state-of-the-art arena.

Golden Horseshoe area, Ontario^note With the area encompassing the Greater Toronto Area, Hamilton, Kitchener–Waterloo, and the Niagara Region

While many hockey traditionalists oppose NHL expansion in general, most do support the notion of adding more Canadian teams. Besides Quebec City, some traditionalists will say that the Greater Toronto Area could support a second team; however, the biggest hurdles for an additional NHL team within the Golden Horseshoe are the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres, both of whom won't allow another team in the region without the guarantee of indemnification payments, particularly the Sabres, who play in the smallest American market and also draw heavily from the Niagara Region. The close proximities of the Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings also preclude the possibility of a third team in southern Ontario.

Hamilton had attempted to join the NHL in the early 90s expansion window, but were passed over. Since then, there were several attempts, most of them fronted by BlackBerry founder Jim Balsillie, to relocate struggling franchises, such as Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Arizona, to Hamilton, but every such attempt has been unsuccessful, primarily due to Balsillie's blatant attempts to subvert the NHL's relocation rules, essentially making no good faith efforts to keep any teams he tried to acquire in their respective markets.^note For example, when Balsillie tried to buy the Predators, he claimed that he would keep the team in Nashville while simultaneously attempting to sell season tickets in Hamilton, which led to then-Predators owner Craig Leipold calling off the sale. Before purchasing the Dallas Stars (and keeping them in Texas), Tom Gaglardi had considered buying the Thrashers and moving them to Hamilton in 2010. Another major obstacle is Hamilton's largest arena, TD Coliseum, which was built in the mid-1980s, and while the arena underwent an extensive C$300 million (~US$218 million) renovation, provisions for an NHL franchise were not included in the plans. Outside of Hamilton, several groups have attempted to establish a second Toronto NHL team, either through expansion or relocation, by proposing an arena district in the suburbs, such as Vaughn or Markham; however, nearly all of these proposals haven't gotten off the ground.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax, the largest city in the Maritime provinces^note New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, is sometimes floated as a possible, if long shot, NHL destination. Apart from Halifax's small population,^note About 350,000 in the urban area and roughly 500,000 in the metro. its remote location on the Canadian East Coast would be a travel nightmare for the NHL, given the city's main airport needs connecting flights to reach most NHL cities; the nearest NHL team to Halifax is Boston, being a little over 400 miles (~650 km) away as the crow flies.^note More so for media and fans than for players; NHL teams generally travel via private charters. Halifax's main indoor arena, Scotiabank Centre, is both too outdated and too undersized to serve as a viable home of an NHL franchise. A major obstacle which applies to all Canadian teams, especially in smaller markets, is that the NHL's collective bargaining agreement dictates that all player contracts are paid in US dollars. While this means that payrolls won't fluctuate with exchange rates, it leaves Canadian teams vulnerable to rate changes, since they collect essentially all of their revenue in Canadian dollars. When the loonie is close in value to the greenback, as it was at the start of the 2010s, it's very good for those teams' bottom lines. When the loonie badly lags, as it has since about 2014... not so much.

Hampton Roads area, Virginia^note With the area encompassing the cities of Chesapeake, Newport News, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach

Virginia is presently the most populous state in the Union without a team in any of the major professional leagues. This is due in part to Northern Virginia, the state's most populous urbanized area, being part of the Washington, D.C. metro area, although there have been some unsuccessful attempts to lure D.C.-area sports teams to NoVA, most recently involving the Capitals and the NBA's Wizards in 2023. In the late 90s expansion window, then-Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn attempted to bring an NHL franchise to the Hampton Roads area, Virginia's second most populous urbanized area, and one of the most populous metro areas in the U.S. without a major professional sports team. Shinn had a name and color scheme ready for the proposed NHL team, the Hampton Roads Rhinos, with their color scheme matching the Hornets' teal and purple. Norfolk has hosted minor league hockey since 1989 across three incarnations of the Admirals; the original Hampton Roads Admirals started in the ECHL in 1989 and were displaced in 2000 in favor of an AHL franchise named the Norfolk Admirals, who themselves were displaced in the 2015 West Coast realignment of the AHL for its current ECHL incarnation. Despite having cooperation with the local governments to build an NHL-sized arena in Norfolk^note While Virginia Beach is the most populous city in Hampton Roads and the Commonwealth overall since 1990, Norfolk is more centrally located and historically has served as the anchor city of the region the league rejected Shinn's bid for expansion; however, an undeterred Shinn had stated that if he couldn't get a team by expansion, he would pursue relocation of an existing franchise. Then-Hartford Whalers owner Peter Karmanos, Jr. was looking to move the Whalers and had considered moving the team to Norfolk before settling on Raleigh, North Carolina, and with the Whalers becoming the Hurricanes, Hampton Roads's chances of landing an NHL franchise were dashed, given that the region lies on the Virginia-North Carolina state line and almost halfway between Raleigh and D.C.^note The region's two most populous cities, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, are on the border (as is another significant city, Suffolk), and the federally designated Hampton Roads metro includes three North Carolina counties.

Hartford, Connecticut

Formerly home of the Whalers from 1975–97, Hartford is a favorite locale among hockey traditionalists whenever talks of expansion or relocation come up, only behind Quebec City. Since the Whalers' departure, Hartford has made do with the minor league Hartford Wolf Pack, the AHL affiliate of the New York Rangers; the Wolf Pack rebranded themselves the Connecticut Whale for a brief period in the early 2010s before reverting back to their original name. Before the Coyotes announced their eventual move to Utah, Connecticut governor Ned Lamont had talked with the league about bringing the Whalers back via either relocation or expansion. However, the Northeast Corridor is already well represented with six teams (Boston, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington), and the Whalers were overshadowed by the Bruins, Devils, Islanders, and Rangers, which led in part to the Whalers' exodus to North Carolina; the four would also likely demand indemnities as a condition of the Whalers' return. Another factor behind the Whalers' move was their former home arena, the PeoplesBank Arena^note Historically known as the Hartford Civic Center, which was built in the mid-1970s, and the Connecticut state government in the mid-1990s didn't want to spend taxpayer money on a new arena. Also complicating matters, the Hurricanes still hold the intellectual property rights for the Whalers, possibly leading to a situation similar to the Winnipeg Jets' revival, where a potential new Whalers team could secure the trademarks, but not the prior team's history and records; there's also the possibility that current Canes owner Tom Dundon could outright refuse to sell the Whalers' IP rights.

Houston, Texas

Despite being one of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S. since the latter half of the 20th century, the NHL has never placed a team in Houston at any point in the league's history. Although traditionalists are generally against adding teams in the Sun Belt region, whether by expansion or relocation, they are more receptive to giving Houston a chance over giving either Atlanta or Phoenix another. The Houston Aeros operated in the WHA from 1972–78, being one of that league's most financially stable and dominant on-ice teams, winning two WHA championships back-to-back in 1974 and 1975. During merger talks in 1977, the WHA wanted to bring six teams over to the NHL (Cincinnati, Edmonton, Houston, New England, Quebec, and Winnipeg); however, while then-NHL President John Ziegler was more open to a merger than his predecessor Clarence Campbell, the majority of team owners were only willing to accept four teams in a revised 1978 proposal, and the WHA insisted that all three of its Canadian teams be accepted, leaving only one slot open for an American team. The Aeros were thought to be a shoo-in for that final expansion slot, given their on-ice performance as well as Houston being a large growing market; however, the NHL was hesitant to add another Sun Belt team after the California Golden Seals moved to Cleveland in 1976^note and were subsequently folded into the Minnesota North Stars only two seasons later, and the Los Angeles Kings and Atlanta Flames^note which would relocate to Calgary in the year following the merger were struggling financially, which led to the WHA using the Whalers as the fourth merger team. Realizing that the Aeros were going to be excluded from the merger, owner Kenneth Schnitzer attempted to relocate an existing NHL franchise to Houston, specifically the Cleveland Barons who were on the verge of folding; however, after those efforts failed, the Aeros chose to cease operations in the 1978 off-season instead of playing a lame duck season, thus being the only former WHA champion not to join the NHL.

From 1994–2013, Houston had a minor league team named the Aeros in honor of the former WHA club. Like their predecessor, the IHL/AHL Aeros were a strong team on the ice; however, the team left Houston when their affiliate/majority owner, the Minnesota Wild, were unable to renew their arena lease due to conflicts with the Rockets' ownership.^note In 1995, following their back-to-back NBA championships, then-Rockets owner Les Alexander attempted to break his lease at the Summit in order to build a new arena; however, Aeros owner Chuck Watson, who also held the operating rights to the Summit, prevented Alexander from leaving before the Rockets' lease was up in 2003. When the Toyota Center opened, the Rockets held the operating rights to the new arena and charged the Aeros exorbitant rent to use the arena, being the highest among AHL teams, forcing Watson to sell a majority stake of the Aeros to the Minnesota Wild. When the Aeros' lease expired in 2013, the team to moved to Iowa, not only to get a more favorable lease agreement, but also to be closer to their parent club. The NHL almost came to Houston in 1998, after then-Rockets owner Les Alexander made a bid to move the Edmonton Oilers^note Coincidentally, Houston had lost the NFL Oilers just two years prior, after their owner Bud Adams controversially moved the team to Tennessee; had the NHL Oilers moved to Houston, Adams would've likely forced a name change due to the Tennessee Titans still holding the Houston Oilers trademark, and the NFL and its owners are very protective of their trademarks. down to Houston; however, a local Edmonton group managed to make an eleventh-hour deal to keep the Oilers from moving.

In 2017, Alexander sold the Rockets and the operating rights to Toyota Center to Tilman Fertitta. Since then, Fertitta has expressed interest in bringing an NHL team to Houston, with discussions between him and the league ramping up as of February 2024; however, later that September, Fertitta announced his bid for a WNBA franchise to revive the former Houston Comets. In March 2025, billionaire Dan Friedkin emerged as a new bidder for a potential Houston NHL team; the Friedkin Group is the principal owner of two major European soccer clubs: AS Roma of Italy's Serie A and Everton FC of the English Premier League. The Rockets' lease with the Toyota Center gives their ownership exclusive rights to operate an NHL franchise in the arena, meaning Friedkin would either have to negotiate with the city of Houston, Harris County, and Fertitta for a revised operating agreement for the Toyota Center or build a new arena elsewhere within the Houston metro area.

Indianapolis, Indiana

While the Hoosier State is primarily known as a basketball mecca, Indianapolis does have a history with hockey, going as far back as 1939 with the Indianapolis Capitals of the AHL, who won the Calder Cup twice in 1942 and 1950. The Indianapolis Racers were a WHA club that played from 1974–78, and were notable as the first professional team that Wayne Gretzky played for; however, the future Great One would only play eight games for Indy before being sold to Edmonton. Like many WHA and expansion NHL franchises, the Racers were struggling financially, and the sale of Gretzky and two other players weren't enough to keep the Racers afloat, causing the team to fold 25 games into the WHA's final season; even if the Racers had survived to the end, they would've been forced to disband anyway, since the NHL was only accepting four WHA clubs in the 1979 expansion, and Indianapolis was not among those four. Indy later had a minor league team known as the Ice, playing in the IHL from 1988–99 and subsequently moved to the mid-level Central Hockey League from 1999–2004. The current pro minor league franchise in the Indianapolis metro area is the Indy Fuel of the ECHL, who started play in 2014 at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum before moving to suburban Fishers a decade later. While the Indianapolis metro area is comparable in population to Columbus or Nashville, a major impediment for Indy landing an NHL franchise is the lack of a suitable venue; Gainbridge Fieldhouse, which was built as a basketball-first arena for the NBA's Pacers and WNBA's Fever, only seats 11,000 in its hockey configuration.

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City was previously home to the Scouts, who only lasted two seasons in KC before moving to Denver in 1976, becoming the Colorado Rockies, and subsequently to New Jersey in 1983 as the Devils. After the Scouts, Kansas City had an IHL team named the Blades, lasting from 1990 until the IHL folded in 2001. The current minor league team in the KC metro area is the ECHL's Mavericks, playing in suburban Independence, Missouri; the Mavericks are owned by Lamar Hunt, Jr., one of the heirs of the NFL's Chiefs. In 2007, a new NHL-sized arena, the T-Mobile (née Sprint) Center^note not to be confused with T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which opened a decade later, opened in downtown KC. Shortly after its opening, T-Mobile Center was used as a bargaining chip by the Pittsburgh Penguins to replace the aging Pittsburgh Civic Arena, ultimately opening what's now known as PPG Paints Arena in 2010. The New York Islanders also considered moving to KC after their efforts to renovate or replace the Nassau Coliseum stalled before settling on moving to Barclays Center in Brooklyn; however, the Isles would return to Nassau temporarily while their current home, UBS Arena, was under construction. After the Coyotes' arena proposal in Tempe was voted down, Kansas City was seen as a potential landing spot before Salt Lake City emerged as that team's future location.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

While Wisconsin has an extensive hockey culture, the state never had an NHL franchise to call its own; however, Milwaukee has a long-running minor league team in the Admirals of the AHL, currently the affiliate of the Nashville Predators. In the early 90s expansion, Milwaukee was one of several markets vying for a franchise; however, the prospective owners withdrew their bid due to the high price tag. Aside from Milwaukee's small metro area, the biggest obstacle to an NHL franchise in Wisconsin is the Chicago Blackhawks, who has historically viewed Milwaukee as part of its territory, despite the Badger State's hatred of Chicago's other sports teams, particularly the NFL's Bears and the Cubs of MLB. A lesser drawback is that while Fiserv Forum, the city's main indoor arena, is a very modern facility, it would be one of the smallest in the NHL; it seats barely more than 15,000 in its hockey configuration. Also, it hosts two basketball teams—the Milwaukee Bucks as the main tenants, and the Marquette Golden Eagles (NCAA men).

New Orleans, Louisiana

In February 2025, the Big Easy emerged as an unexpected candidate for NHL expansion. New Orleans has hosted a team in the ECHL, the Brass, from 1997–2002; the Brass folded when the first incarnation of the NBA's Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans) moved from Charlotte, and the basketball team effectively evicted the Brass, forcing them to cover the cost of converting the arena between sports as a condition of co-tenancy. Said arena, the Smoothie King Center, is showing its age and would need either a major renovation or outright replacement. Also working against the Big Easy is its small (and declining) metropolitan population of under 1.3 million residents.

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha was another city mentioned by Commissioner Bettman during the 2024 All-Star Weekend looking to land an NHL team. Omaha has been home to two incarnations of the minor league Knights, with the first incarnation (from 1939–42 and from 1945–51) being notable as the first pro team of Gordie Howe; the later incarnation lasted from 1959–75 in two leagues, first in the IHL and later in the Central Professional Hockey League across two separate franchises of the same name. Despite lacking a professional hockey team since 2007, after the Flames had their AHL affiliate in Omaha for two seasons, the city strongly supports amateur hockey with the Omaha Lancers of the junior hockey-level USHL and the NCAA's Omaha Mavericks. While Omaha has had an NHL-sized arena since 2003—namely the CHI Health Center in downtown (a bit over 17,000 in its hockey configuration)—it's starting to show its age, and the Creighton Bluejays men's basketball program has scheduling priority there. Omaha businessman Rod Yates has proposed building an NHL-sized arena near the Nebraska Crossing shopping center in suburban Gretna as part of a larger mixed-use expansion. The biggest roadblock for Omaha landing any major pro sports team is its small metropolitan population of just under a million residents, which is smaller than Buffalo and only slightly ahead of either Winnipeg or Quebec City. Another impediment to Omaha getting any major pro sports team is its close proximity to the much larger Kansas City market (a little less than 3 hours' drive down I-29).

Phoenix, Arizona

Emerged as an expansion (or rather, revival) candidate in April 2024 after the league facilitated a sale of the Arizona Coyotes to Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, who had made an explicit request to the NHL to open the expansion process that January. Previous Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo had a five-year option to reactivate the Coyotes with an "expansion" draft on the condition that he succeeds in getting a new NHL-capable arena built in the Phoenix metro area within that time frame; however, Meruelo decided to cut and run roughly two months after collecting $1 billion from the NHL. On the same day this happened, two separate bidding groups formed with their goals to bring hockey back to the deserts of the Salt River Valley. Suns owner Mat Ishbia has expressed interest in bringing the NHL back to Phoenix, but he stopped short of saying if he would be the controlling/majority owner.

Much like Atlanta, traditionalists would rather see the league permanently write off Phoenix as a lost cause than even attempt to return, believing that the original Coyotes' 28-year tenure in Arizona was a complete farce, particularly since the team's 2009 bankruptcy and especially under Meruelo's ownership, pointing specifically to the Coyotes' two years at Mullett Arena. Many Phoenix hockey fans believe that the Coyotes could have been successful if their arena had been built in the right location and had competent ownership from the start.

Portland, Oregon

Like Milwaukee, Portland has a strong hockey culture. The Portland Rosebuds were the first American-based team to contest for the Stanley Cup in 1916, losing three games to two against the Canadiens. Besides the Rosebuds, Portland had several other lower-level professional teams, with two separate incarnations of the Buckaroos, the first lasting from 1928–41 and the second from 1960–75, and the Eagles from 1944–51. Since 1976, Portland has been home to the Winterhawks of the CHL's Western Hockey League. While the city has its supporters among hockey traditionalists as an expansion or relocation destination, particularly before the Coyotes settled on moving to Utah, a few factors work against the Rose City. First, the NHL may be hesitant to oversaturate the Pacific Northwest with another team, despite the success of the Seattle Kraken as well as the potential three-way rivalry between a Portland NHL team, the Kraken, and the Canucks (similar to the rivalry between the Timbers, Sounders, and Whitecaps in Major League Soccer as well as the short-lived rivalry between the Trail Blazers, Supersonics, and Grizzlies in the NBA from 1995–2001). Second, Moda Center, while built to NHL specification, is nearly 30 years old and would need major renovations. Lastly, there is currently no serious ownership group actively looking to place an NHL team in Portland, as the city has an active push for a Major League Baseball team, either by expansion or relocation, and a new WNBA expansion team has been confirmed for Portland for 2026, which will share Moda Center with the Blazers.

Quebec City, Quebec

Since the Nordiques' departure in 1995, Quebec City has remained a sentimental favorite of hockey traditionalists whenever talks of expansion or relocation come up. As part of Quebec City's bid for an NHL franchise in the 2015 expansion window, the antiquated Colisée de Québec was replaced with the state-of-the-art Centre Vidéotron. Despite having a suitable arena and a passionate fanbase ready to accept a new team, several factors impede the return of the Nordiques (apart from the aforementioned exchange rate issues).

1. Quebec City would be the second-smallest market in the NHL, only slightly ahead of Winnipeg, and the third-smallest among the "Big Four" pro sports leagues.^note With Green Bay, Wisconsin being the smallest "Big Four" market. When including MLS and the CFL, Regina, Saskatchewan, home of the CFL's Roughriders, would be the smallest. Adding an eighth Canadian franchise is seen by the league as a lateral move at best in terms of generating revenue and growing the game, since the seven existing Canadian teams already cover almost half of the country's population.
2. Aside from its small market size and the loonie's volatility, Quebec City's biggest obstacle is the language and cultural barrier, as the city is almost exclusively Francophone, unlike Montreal, where a person can get away with only speaking English, although some working knowledge of French is helpful. The Nordiques' lack of English-language broadcasting hindered the team's marketability even in their best years.
3. Many of Quebec's major companies are based in Greater Montreal, limiting the amount of corporate money, either from sponsorships or season tickets, available to a potential Nordiques revival. Most of Quebec City's economy is centered around the provincial government, higher education, and healthcare.
4. Quebec sovereignty is a sensitive subject within Canadian politics. The "Battle of Quebec"^note French: Bataille du Québec was as much of a political rivalry as it was a sports rivalry, with the Habs being symbolic of loyalty to the Dominion, while the Nordiques were symbolic of Quebec sovereignty. Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau, the primary backer of Quebec City's 2015 expansion bid, is viewed as a strong Quebec nationalist^note Péladeau is a former leader of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois., and six of the seven Canadian team owners were reportedly against Péladeau becoming a team owner due to said views.
5. If/when the NHL decides to expand, the expansion fee would very likely exceed US$2 billion (~C$2.7 billion); on top of the expansion fee, the Canadiens would likely demand a high indemnification payment, since the Habs have been the province's only team for going on 30 years.
6. The existing small market Canadian teams (Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Winnipeg) already struggle to attract and retain top-tier talent in free agency, with some players citing higher taxes, bad weather, a lack of off-season activities, and increased scrutiny from the local media and fans as reasons for not wanting to play in small Canadian markets, and Quebec City would certainly be no exception.^note While the big three Canadian markets (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver) also suffer from the same issues of high taxes and increased fan/media scrutiny, they do have the advantage of being large cosmopolitan cities.
7. The state of the Winnipeg Jets over a decade after their re-establishment serves as a possible bellwether for how a Quebec Nordiques revival could play out. While the Nordiques' return would undoubtedly be successful early on due to strong nostalgia, there is no guarantee that the team would remain economically viable long term once the honeymoon period ends.

San Diego, California

Since the Seattle Kraken's 2021 launch, San Diego, with a metro population of nearly 3.3 million, is currently the largest U.S. metro area without either an NHL or NBA franchise. Adding in the nearby Tijuana metro area just across the U.S.-Mexico border, the region's combined population is 5.4 million. From 1974–77, San Diego had a WHA team named the Mariners; despite having a decent on-ice showing, the team struggled with attendance and folded after attempts to move the team to South Florida fell through. Besides the Mariners, the city has had several minor league teams named the Gulls at various points, with the current iteration of the Gulls being the AHL affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks just up the road. The city's main indoor arena, Pechanga Arena^note historically known as the San Diego Sports Arena, was built in the mid-1960s and is functionally obsolete by modern NHL and NBA standards in terms of both seating capacity and amenities. In the early 2020s, the San Diego city council put the SD Sports Arena site up for redevelopment. The winning proposal, Midway Rising, would see the SD Sports Arena replaced with a modern 16,000-seat arena along with housing, commercial, and retail space. In June 2023, Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke became the lead investor in the Midway Rising project through his real estate development arm. Arena issues aside, a potential San Diego NHL team may have to pay indemnities to the Kings and Ducks for encroaching upon the Southern California market; however, a San Diego NHL team could potentially help bolster youth hockey in Mexico. Despite San Diego being the 8th most populous city proper and the 18th most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. (with the metro consisting only of San Diego County), its media market is rather small at #30, since like the metro it's confined solely to San Diego County.^note For an example of the metro population/media market disparity, the Denver metro area ranks just behind San Diego County with roughly 330,000 fewer people, but Denver's media market ranks #17, as it encompasses the majority of the state of Colorado, minus the Colorado Springs and Grand Junction areas.

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan's largest city, Saskatoon, has attempted to bring an NHL franchise to the prairie province. In the early 1980s, former Edmonton Oilers founding owner Bill Hunter attempted to purchase the financially-floundering St. Louis Blues with the intent of relocating them to Saskatoon. Despite having the financial backing of the Saskatchewan government and Molson Brewery, the league's Board of Governors near-unanimously rejected the Blues' proposed relocation, as the league was not willing to lose the St. Louis market, citing issues with Saskatoon's small population and remote location^note At the time, the city of Saskatoon had about 160,000 people. Even today, its metro population is less than 320,000, slightly below Green Bay, Wisconsin; the only other major population center in the province is the capital of Regina (~250,000 metro), which is roughly 260 kilometers (~160 mi) south of Saskatoon. By contrast, Quebec City's metro population is almost equal to Winnipeg's. One reason Green Bay can support an NFL team, apart from its public ownership and storied history, is its secondary market of Milwaukee, whose metro population of about 1.6 million is noticeably greater than that of the entire province of Saskatchewan. as well as Hunter's prior involvement with the WHA in the 1970s; the Board made a counter-offer to Hunter, allowing him to purchase the Blues under the stipulation that the team remain in St. Louis, but Hunter was not interested. When the NHL opened up expansion in the early 1990s, Hunter made a bid for one of the expansion slots; however, he was forced to withdraw his bid when the provincial government declined to financially support his new bid. In 2009, after the Phoenix Coyotes' bankruptcy, a prospective ownership group proposed playing five games of their 2009–10 regular season home schedule in Saskatoon, but the proposal ultimately went nowhere as the group lacked the funds to buy the team.

Arizona Coyotes

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The Arizona Coyotes: formerly the original Winnipeg Jets and Phoenix Coyotes. After years of being threatened of relocation (helped by a former owner filing the team for bankruptcy in 2009, followed by four years of the Coyotes operated by the NHL itself — hellbent on keeping them in Arizona, even if Hamilton, Seattle (which eventually got the Kraken in 2021), Quebec City, Kansas City, Houston, and even Saskatoon were offering to get the team. True North Sports and Entertainment were the frontrunners to acquire the Coyotes, bringing the original Jets back to Winnipeg if efforts to keep the team in Arizona fell through before the league convinced True North to buy the Thrashers instead; while the league allowed True North to revive the Winnipeg Jets name, the original Jets' history remains in Arizona) finally got a new owner in 2013. Surprised everybody in 2009–10 as one of the best teams in the league, finishing second in their division with 50 wins. They'd then do it again two years later by winning their first ever divisional championship … for both sides of the franchise! That 2011-12 squad also made the first Conference Finals run for either side, only to get drummed out in five games by the Kings and return to perennial basement-dweller status in the years since (except for a very narrow miss with a wild card in 2018-19 and an appearance in the expanded 2020 playoffs where they managed to win their Qualifying Round series over Nashville before being demolished by Colorado in the next round; even in this year, they were eleventh in the Conference and were on a month long skid when the season was paused by the pandemic). As such, they're unsurprisingly the oldest franchise to currently never make it to the Stanley Cup, provided you include their original stay in Winnipeg. The Coyotes were in the Pacific Division from 1998 until the activation of the Seattle Kraken in 2021 moved Arizona back into the Central Division^note the Jets were originally placed in the Smythe in 1979, moving to the Norris in 1981 when the league realigned into more geographically grouped divisions, only to move back to the Smythe in 1982 when the Rockies moved east and became the Devils; the Jets returned to the Norris, now renamed the Central Division, in 1993, remaining in the Central after their move to Phoenix until the league realinged into six divisions in 1998. Rumors of relocation have also re-intensified due to both the impending division switch and the current ownership's insistence on signing one-year deals with their now-former arena (the Gila River Arena), all of which came to a head when the City of Glendale decided not to renew the Coyotes' lease before the 2021–22 season began and forced the team and league to scramble for both a new arena and city once that season ended. Houston was considered to be the leading candidate since there are interested local parties and possible arena solutions already in place^note Specifically Tilman Fertitta, owner of the NBA's Houston Rockets, and the Toyota Center, home to the Rockets, but was built to also accommodate the NHL as well, but the league and franchise seemed determined to stay in the state of Arizona even if they couldn't stay in Glendale, thus they tried to strike a deal with the City of Tempe. The plan started with the Coyotes moving into the 5,000-seat Mullett Arena that was initially built by and for Arizona State University for some of their college teams (including hockey) in 2022, intending to stay there until at least 2025, if not 2026, while a more permanent home in Tempe (with a lot more seats being built by then) got built for them. However, the leading proposal for an arena and surrounding entertainment district was met with immediate opposition and subsequently fell apart after a public referendum resulted in a lopsided "no" vote in May 2023; after that, the Coyotes needed to seriously consider leaving the state altogether and relocate, particularly with both the Players' Union and the Board of Governors growing impatient with Meruelo in finding a permanent solution.

The ownership made an effort to stay in the area, exploring possible sites in Mesa and north Phoenix, with a public land auction for an undeveloped, state-owned 100-acre tract originally scheduled for June 27, 2024 in the latter being the team's last-ditch effort to remain in Arizona. Given that the league wasn't too keen on an extended stay at Mullett Arena, since the proposed new arena would have taken at minimum two years to construct, the league facilitated a sale to Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, giving the Salt Lake City market its second Big Four pro franchise.^note While not exactly considered a hockey stronghold, Utah has a storied minor league hockey history. The Salt Lake Golden Eagles existed from 1969-94, winning five league titles and cultivating a loyal fanbase that helped the club twice survive their league ceasing operations, moving to a different league. After the Golden Eagles moved to Detroit, the Denver Grizzlies moved to Salt Lake in 1995, and the Utah Grizzlies (technically two different franchises with the same name: 1995-2005, 2005-present) have remained there since. The sale agreement officially gives Salt Lake City an "expansion" NHL team consisting of the Coyotes' players and front office, while the Coyotes get deactivated and owner Alex Meruelo granted a five-year window to get a new arena built in the Phoenix area. If he was successful, the Coyotes would have gotten reactivated with a new roster and front office. Under the terms of the agreement, Meruelo could not sell his franchise rights during its dormancy period, arena construction had to be at least 50 percent complete with an additional 18-month lead time before the Coyotes could be reactivated, the $1 billion payment for the Coyotes' hockey assets was to be paid back to the league as an expansion fee, and Meruelo also could not sell the Coyotes until five years after their reactivation. This Cleveland Browns-esque deal^note A very similar thing like this happened in the NFL in 1995, where the Cleveland Browns were in the Yotes' spot and the Baltimore Ravens were in the Utah Hockey Club's spot. The Browns eventually got reactivated for the 1999 season. was formalized on April 18, 2024, when the NHL board of governors unanimously approved the sale and quasi-relocation of the Coyotes.

Following their deactivation, the Coyotes continued to have struggles with their attempts at finding stability. On June 21, 2024, the auction for the state-owned parcel that the Coyotes intended to build their new arena was cancelled thanks to Meruelo and the team failing to submit the proper permits to participate in it, and not long after confirmed that no plans were in place to further pursue getting an arena. Additionally, reports have emerged that the Tuscon Roadrunners—their former (and Utah's current) AHL affiliate—plan to relocate to Reno within the next several years, bringing the number of professional hockey teams in Arizona to zero. The team finally met its end (for now at least) on June 24, when the hated Alex Meruelo walked away from being an owner of any kind towards the team and their branding, causing the inactivity deal to be rendered void and made the NHL dissolve the team. Despite this, the tide might be finally turning in favor of Phoenix hockey fans, as two expansionary bidding groups have formed to bring back the sport to the Valley of the Sun on the same exact day Meruelo dissolved the franchise. Additionally, given the love of them among Phoenix hockey fans despite their numerous flaws and setbacks, the prevailing belief is any expansion team would be a full-on revival of the Coyotes. As for what the future will bring for any such effort, stay tuned for any future developments.

They were also known for, even when fielding awful teams, somehow being a permanent hellish thorn on the Toronto Maple Leafs' side for no particular reason, as it had been more than 20 years since the last time Toronto beat the Coyotes at home in regulation, and Arizona having beat them 18 out of the 25 times they've played one another.

California Golden Seals

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The California Golden Seals originally started out as the San Francisco Seals for the majority of their time in the then-rivaling WHL^*(the Western Hockey League), winning two championships there in their early years of 1963 and 1964. Near the end of their time at the WHL and at the start of their time in the NHL, ^note  in the 1967 expansion. the team moved to Oakland and broadened their sense of team names to become the California Seals before being more specific as the Oakland Seals for their first few seasons in the NHL. After the original team owners struggled with their move to Oakland to the point of nearly failing to sell the team to someone else despite making it to the playoffs twice in a row after their inaugural season in the NHL, the owner of the Oakland Athletics purchased the Seals and briefly renamed them the Bay Area Seals for two games before becoming the California Golden Seals for the rest of their time in California. However, the Golden Seals never recovered from their ownership issues throughout their promotion to the NHL, as they were never promoted well locally and an ill-fated trade with the Montreal Canadiens made competing properly feel next to impossible for them. After failing to move to Denver, minority owners George & Gordan Gund became full-time owners themselves and moved the team to Cleveland to rename them the Cleveland Barons (1976-1978) in honor of the original Barons team from the AHL^*(the American Hockey League). Unfortunately for the team, they had an even worse situation in Cleveland due to the rushed move resulting in a lack of promotion and money for the team in their first season in Cleveland. The team almost not just folded during the season, but also nearly caused a player's strike to occur there. However, they were briefly saved by the NHL giving the team a $1.9 million loan to finish that first season in Cleveland off. Unfortunately, despite them surviving another season due to the Gunds pouring their own cash into the team and briefly being competitive in their second season, the Barons were pushed to their wit's end between the new arena owners and a lack of new owners willing to purchase the team altogether, either for Cleveland or somewhere else like Houston. This led to an infamous merger with the also-struggling Minnesota North Stars (now Dallas Stars) that led to the Minnesota franchise retaining their name, history, and team colors in exchange for the Gund brothers being the new team owners for the North Stars. Interestingly enough, half of the North Stars in 1991 (by this time, none of them were original Golden Seals/Barons players) were later sent to the San Jose Sharks, a then-expansion team of the time now owned by the Gund family, leading to a rare dispersal/expansion draft setting for both the Sharks and North Stars, though the Sharks don't really retain the history of the (Golden) Seals/Barons. As such, the (Golden) Seals/Barons are the last, most recent team to be defunct in any of the major four American sports leagues, never mind the entire NHL.

Montreal Maroons

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The Montreal Maroons officially went by the Montreal Professional Hockey Club for their entire history and were the last professional Montreal-based hockey team created in the NHL. Like the short-lived Montreal Wanderers (see their entry), they focused on being the team for the English-speaking minority of Montreal. James Strachan was a previous owner of the Wanderers, and originally wanted the Maroons to exist as a revived version of that team, (as seen below). Strachan could not secure team rights of the Wanderers back from that original team's final owner, Sam Lichtenhein. As a result, he settled on a more generic, longer name to reflect their professional hockey status, though the Maroons were the official retroactive team nickname due to the colour of the jerseys they wore. The Maroons' existence was also what caused the first large hockey arena, the Montreal Forum, to happen due to the team sharing their home arena with the rival Canadiens. The Maroons did not start out well in their first year in the NHL, finishing their inaugural season with a 9-19-2 record for a fifth place spot ahead of only the Boston Bruins. However, in their second season, the Maroons saw significant improvements by not only placing in second place behind the original Ottawa Senators, but they also both won the NHL Playoff format over both the Pittsburgh Pirates (see below) and the original Senators and also won the final interleague Stanley Cup championship for the NHL over the WHL's Victoria Cougars in a 3-1 series win at home. After that season, the NHL became the permanent home of the Stanley Cup championship, with the Maroons continuing to be a very successful hockey team throughout the majority of their history in the NHL due to powerful forwards that they had under what was called the "S Line" formation, as well as the first ever goalie to wear a hockey mask. When the league had enough teams to create divisions for the American teams and the Canadian teams that existed at the time, the Maroons only failed to reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs one other time before their final season. For the majority of their time spent in the Canadian Division, the Maroons were always in the top three, (finishing in first place twice), and making the playoffs for those seasons. However, aside from one more Stanley Cup championship won in 1935 over the Maple Leafs (which was the last one won by a non-Original Six team until 1974 by the Philadelphia Flyers), the Maroons usually managed to fall in either the quarterfinals or semifinals matches (with one match even holding the record for the longest ever playoff game in a 1-0 loss to the Detroit Red Wings that lasted for six overtimes for 176:30 of total action [or until 16:30 was left in the final overtime]), with them once failing to win the Stanley Cup over the New York Rangers in 1928 during the Rangers' second season of existence. Off the ice, however, the Maroons were facing significant financial issues due to a spending spree they had during the 1928-29 season before the start of The Great Depression. Once the Great Depression went into effect, the Maroons tried to stay competitive in spite of its lingering effects on the public eye, such as resorting to using a player-coach for two seasons and then selling the team to a bigger organization called the Canadian Arena Company. However, it was becoming clear to both the Canadiens and the Maroons that only one Montreal team could survive in the long-term, with the Canadiens having the advantage due to focusing on the majority French-speaking population in Montreal. By the time the Maroons played their final season in the NHL, rumors abounded of them moving elsewhere as a means of survival just as the Great Depression was nearing its end. Unfortunately for the Maroons, their final season caught up with them both financially and on the ice, as the Maroons finished with a 12-30-6 record, dead last in the final year of the Canadian Division's existence. This was in part due to team captain Lionel Conacher retiring from hockey in order to get into politics instead. After their final season concluded, the Maroons departed from the NHL under what was supposed to be a temporary basis. At that time the Maroons and Canadiens shared an owner and some Maroons players became a part of the Canadiens, some were sold to other teams, with others out of hockey. The Maroons had two chances to revive themselves by moves to first St. Louis and then to Philadelphia, but both situations failed. St. Louis and Philadelphia each had a failed NHL team, (see below). When nothing was resolved before a planned deadline at the end of the 1946-47 season, the team folded. Despite the tragic ending, the Maroons had the most success of any former NHL team, with 14 players from their history being named to the Hockey Hall of Fame. The majority of their coaches were also honored by the HHOF.

Montreal Wanderers

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The Montreal Wanderers were considered the first ever professional hockey team based in Montreal, being created years before the Canadiens existed and appealed to the French-speaking community there. The Wanderers were named that due to them being a tribute to four different Montreal Wanderers franchises that all lasted for just one season. They were also known by fans as the Montreal Redbands due to their use of red colouring going entirely around the middle of otherwise white jerseys, although the Wanderers were never officially referred to as the Redbands. The Wanderers first appeared in 1903 in the FAHL, a league they helped create after disputes over the control of the original Montreal Hockey Club, (which lasted from 1884-1932), forced both personnel and some players from the original club into creating the Wanderers as a direct competitor. In their first season in the FAHL, the Wanderers played a Stanley Cup match against the Ottawa Hockey Team (the precursor to the original Ottawa Senators team below that joined the FAHL only days after its inaugural season began). It resulted in a 5-5 tie game. The Wanderers wanted to continue their rematch against Ottawa in their home arena, the Montreal Arena, but due to Stanley Cup rules and regulations at the time (being considered the Challenge Cup), the people entrusted with the trophy did not allow the Wanderers to have a rematch in Montreal. This controversially led to the Wanderers forfeiting the series to Ottawa, and the Senators beginning their Silver Seven era. The Wanderers officially started their rivalry with the Ottawa franchise. The Wanderers played one more season in the FAHL alongside Ottawa before they both moved to the ECAHA, where the Wanderers franchise won every season there until the final season over Ottawa (and by extension, won the Stanley Cup in each of those seasons over the Senators). Once the ECAHA ceased to exist, the Wanderers moved to the then-newly created NHA as a charter team, briefly playing without the Senators as a rival before Ottawa joined them during that season. In the inaugural NHA season (being played at the smaller Jubilee Arena for the Wanderers), both the Wanderers and the Senators were named Stanley Cup champions, but it was the Wanderers that were named the official champions of the NHA that season due to them having the best record of every team competing that year. Unfortunately for the Wanderers, they never competed for another Stanley Cup after 1910, as they finished in fourth place with a 7-9 record the following season and did not finish any better than second place with in each of their following seasons until 1915, when they tied with the rival Senators for first place with a 14-6 record. They lost the championship series against Ottawa who scored 4 goals over Montreal's 1 goal throughout two games played. In their final two seasons in the NHA, the Wanderers finished as the second-worst team behind the predecessor to the modern-day Toronto Maple Leafs and then as the overall worst team of the final NHA season respectively due to financial problems the team's owner had at the time. Due to every remaining NHA team hating Eddie Livingstone (who owned two Toronto teams for the first half of the final NHA season through what the rest of the league considered as "unethical means"), the Wanderers joined the rival Canadiens and Senators (and Quebec) as the first ever teams of the NHL (though the Quebec franchise was "temporarily" replaced by a Toronto franchise that eventually became the modern-day Maple Leafs that season). In the Wanderers' first ever game in the NHL, they won a shootout with the new Toronto squad, 10-9. Unfortunately, the Wanderers went downhill from there, as they only achieved an average crowd of about 700 people despite allowing free admission for military personnel and their families. They then lost three straight games to the Canadiens and Ottawa (twice) before the Montreal Arena (the original home of the Wanderers and Canadiens) burned down on January 2, 1918. This led to team owner Sam Lichtenhein folding the club two days later (thereby forfeiting matches to the Canadiens and Toronto that were scheduled at the time), though Lichtenhein continued being a partner for the league in future meetings that season. They are technically the shortest-lived franchise in NHL history, playing in only four games (winning only one game), and forfeiting two through external forces beyond the team's control before folding altogether. The original owner of the Wanderers later gave the English speaking minority community a new team to cheer for six years later in the Montreal Maroons, as seen above.

New York Americans

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The New York Americans were the second American team in NHL history behind the Boston Bruins, as well as the league's first team to be based in New York. The Amerks, as fans used to call them at the time, were jointly owned by former lightweight boxer and fight promoter Benny Leonard and former Prohibition-era bootlegger and gangster Bill Dwyer, the latter of whom used his fortunes from bootlegged beer and gangster operations to purchase the entire Hamilton Tigers' roster (see the Quebec Athletics below for more information on that regard). They briefly were nicknamed the New York Hamilton Tigers in their inaugural training camp sessions because of them buying out the Hamilton Tigers' roster with Dwyer's money, though they officially became the Americans by the time their first regular season game began. Despite essentially owning the same Hamilton Tigers players that placed first in their final season of existence and looked to compete in that year's Stanley Cup Playoffs at the time, only now gaining significantly more money due to Dwyer's ownership, the team finished in fifth place (ahead of only the modern-day Maple Leafs and the Canadiens), though were hugely successful to the point of the owners of the Madison Square Garden wanting to own their own NHL team after seeing the huge crowds the Americans received in their first season. Bafflingly enough, the Americans were soon placed in the Canadian Division instead of the American Division like the then-newly founded Rangers once the league grew enough to have divisions become a thing from 1926 until 1938 despite the NHL having a team in Detroit (which eventually became the Red Wings) from that time as well that could have handled them travelling to Canada more by comparison. This led to the Americans being considered a second-rate team to the Rangers in that period of time due to the Rangers having immediate success in the NHL (winning the American Division in their first season and the Stanley Cup in their second season) despite Bill Dwyer's efforts to rig games in the Americans' efforts by having goal judges saying goals counted just by touching the opposing team's goal line. One game even resulted in Dwyer wanting Ottawa goalkeeper Alex Connell dead due to him conflicting against the goal judge for that night, though Connell thankfully survived Dwyer's mob due to police efforts. However, when the Americans played in the Canadian Division for some innate reason, they often finished either dead last or second-to-last in their division, failing to make it to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in all but three seasons they played in that time due to the tougher competition up in Canada from that period of time. In the three seasons they did reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they finished either in second or third place, which led to them losing a 1-0 quarterfinals match to the in-state rivaling Rangers, winning a quarterfinals series match against the Chicago Blackhawks 7-5 before losing a 2-1 best-of-three series to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and winning a best-of-three series 2-1 against the in-state rivaling Rangers before losing a best-of-three series 2-1 against the Blackhawks respectively. Leonard did not live to see the Amerks' first playoff match due to appendix problems in 1929, while Dwyer was around for two of the team's three playoff appearances in the Canadian Division due to the end of Prohibition leading to him being in massive debt through a government lawsuit against him. When the NHL took over the team a season later due to Dwyer failing to pay his debts off by him losing all the money he was lent from leading team manager/coach Red Dutton ($20,000) to a craps game, the Americans saw some immediate improvements in terms of results, which led to them being a playoff contender for three straight seasons (two of which coming after the NHL dropped down to seven teams and saw divisions as unnecessary by that time). However, the long-term effects of Dwyer's poor management of money (especially from that craps game) helped play a major part in the end of the Amerks. During the final season they made it to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Canada was entering World War II, which led to some of the team's Canadian players leaving for military service. The efforts then led to more players from the franchise leaving for war in the Amerks' final season in New York (finishing dead last there), which led to new owner Red Dutton being forced to sell off his best players that didn't go off to war for cash to help them survive as long as they could. In an effort to help the Americans survive beyond the 1941, the team moved their operations to Brooklyn and became the Brooklyn Americans (1941-1942), though they still played their home games that season in the Madison Square Garden in Manhattan due to Brooklyn not even having a temporary stadium to play in (only areas to help the team practice in that time). Once the war efforts reached American soil, more players left to help fight for the military against the Axis powers, which forced Red Dutton to suspend operations on the last-place team permanently after their sole season in Brooklyn concluded, though Dutton did want the Americans to return to the NHL, to the point where a group in Brooklyn wanted to help build a new ice hockey arena there. Regardless of whether you believe the team actually folded in 1942 officially or 1946 through the NHL's decision against this team's return, the Americans franchise was the last franchise to falter before the start of the "Original Six" era began, as well as the last hockey team in the league to fold before the Cleveland Barons folded by merger in the 1970's.

original Ottawa Senators

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The original Ottawa Senators originally first started as the Ottawa Hockey Club, which existed as an independent hockey team for their first four years of existence as inspired by the Montreal Winter Carnival before briefly playing in the AHAC in 1887. After being dormant for two years due to their ice rink being turned into a roller rink, they returned as the Ottawa Generals under a new arena and competed in the OCHL^*(the Ottawa City Hockey League) in 1890. They continued going on as the Generals and split playing time between the OCHL, the OHA, and the AHAC for the first half of the 1890's, winning the OHA championship for three straight years in 1891-93 and the AHAC championship in January-March 1892, before permanently sticking with the AHAC from the second ever Stanley Cup championship match until 1898. On the note of the Stanley Cup, the Generals were also the first team to witness Lord Stanley reveal the championship that eventually became the Stanley Cup (the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup as it was known as the time) to the public eye. Anyways, the Generals then moved into the CAHL, winning the league's championship in 1901 before leaving to briefly become independent in 1904. During their last two years of the CAHL, as well as their time independently, their time in the FAHL, the amateur turned professional ECAHA, the CHA^*(the Canadian Hockey Association), and even their first two seasons in the NHA, the Ottawa Silver Seven were given that new nickname for their seven players providing Stanley Cup dominance from that period of time, holding it for four straight years from 1903-1906 before losing it that final year to the Wanderers as revenge for their Stanley Cup controversy in 1904. After the Silver Seven era ended, the team became the Senators going forward, with them regaining the Stanley Cup three times from 1909-1911 (though they didn't win the NHA championship in 1910) and winning the NHA championship in 1911. Long story short, the original Senators were pretty much the original Montreal Canadiens in terms of Stanley Cup and general championship impact on professional hockey, to the point where the modern Senators claim the original Senators' championships as their own history of sorts. The Senators faced a bit of a decline in the NHA after their first few seasons there, though they did win the NHA championship again in 1915 before moving into the NHL as a charter team there. Ottawa got off to a rocky start in the NHL with the Senators being late for their debut game (at home) due to contract disputes regarding payment against amount of games played in their first season there. After that, their first season and a half had them get into a rocky start in the NHL, finishing last or second place (out of 3 teams at the time) before being considered competitive enough to play in the NHL Playoffs. Once they did, however, they had a new dominant era that resulted in the first ever dynasty in the NHL with the "Super Six", named after the goals scored in the final game of their 1920 Stanley Cup championship series. The team's focus on defense was so strong during the dynasty years of 1920-1924 (winning the Stanley Cup in 1920, 1921, & 1923) that the NHL changed their rules to prevent teams like the original Senators from staying in the defensive zone once the puck left said zone. The Senators then slipped up in the standings after the rule changes combined with the first few expansions at hand, though they did win the Stanley Cup for the last time in 1927 alongside the NHL Canadian division that existed at the time. However, the team's final years had them be in financial trouble due to Ottawa being the smallest place to hold a team with 110,000 people living there at the time, which caused a lot of financial troubles for the team after winning their final Stanley Cup championship. As such, these Senators tried everything they could from playing a certain amount of "home" games in American places like Detroit, Atlantic City, and even Boston to giving away star players for loads of cash to briefly suspending operations for the 1931-32 season to even thinking about moving elsewhere like Toronto or merging with other struggling NHL teams at the time to try and survive. However, due to the struggles caused by the Great Depression, the original Senators ended up moving to St. Louis to become the St. Louis Eagles (1934-1935) for just one season. Unfortunately for the Eagles, their time in St. Louis didn't help matters with them not only finishing in last place again (with an 11-31-6 record that season), but their financial woes worsened due to travel expenses, which caused them to sell even more of their players to survive during the season. That caused the NHL to buy back the team to fold operations and disperse the Eagles' players to other teams after the team asked to suspend operations once again. As for the Senators, they still managed to survive after the professional team moved, though they operated as a senior amateur club by the Montreal Group for the QAHA^*(the Quebec Amateur Hockey Association), the QSHL^*(the Quebec Senior Hockey League), and the QHL^*(the Quebec Hockey League) from 1934 until they stopped existing in 1954, hence the year differences at hand. The "Senior Senators", as they were nicknamed by fans at the time, continued to remain competitive during the Great Depression years, winning the Allen Cup for the QSHL in 1943 (going under the Quebec Commandos at that point in time due to World War II) and 1949 and trying their hand at being professional again in 1953 before the Senators folded operations a year later due to the rise of television giving people their professional hockey needs for Ottawa. And yes, the current Ottawa Senators are named that because of this team's storied history.

Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates (1915-1930) were a team that's completed unrelated to the Major League Baseball team of the same name. They also originally started out as an independent, amateur hockey team known as the Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets in 1915 before going semi-professional in 1921 due to success against teams from the USAHA^*(the United States Amateur Hockey Association). From there, they struggled in their first two seasons before turning things around to become champions of the USAHA in 1924 & 1925 (the latter of which was by default) before the USAHA folded. However, when the team was sold to James Callahan, he was given permission to take the entire Yellow Jackets' roster of the time and make that team compete in the NHL, albeit going under the Pirates name that he took from the MLB team due to the original owner wanting to keep the Yellow Jackets name for later on. In their first season in the NHL, they performed surprisingly well with a 19-16-1 record for third place that season before later losing to the eventual champion Montreal Maroons for the 1926 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Unfortunately for the Pirates, things went downhill from there, as greater expansion in the NHL led to them being out of the playoffs in their second season before returning for the last time in 1928 with a 19-17-8 record. That season, they lost to the eventual champion New York Rangers due to the Rangers scoring more goals than the Pirates in the first round of that series. Things continued to get worse for them once the owner of the team was forced to sell them to New York Americans owners Bill Dwyer and Benny Leonard, who failed to improve the team themselves (or himself once Leonard died due to complications with his appendectomy in 1929). In fact, their records got even worse under the duo's ownership, with them finishing 9-27-8 and 5-36-3 in their final two seasons in Pittsburgh before the Great Depression forced them to sell their best players to other teams and then moved the team to Philadelphia (albeit as a temporary measure at the time) to become the Philadelphia Quakers (1930-1931) for one season. While the team hoped to have a new arena in Pittsburgh to replace the original arena they used there (the Duquesne Gardens), the Quakers managed to have their worse season in franchise history with a 4-36-4 record (yes, only four wins), which used to be the lowest win percentage of any NHL team before the inaugural Washington Capitals somehow managed to finish with a worse percentage by comparison. Even then, due to the Quakers finishing with the tied record for the lowest amount of wins in NHL history (at least in terms of teams that actually finished their regular season periods), Philadelphia shut down operations alongside the original Senators for the 1931-32 season, though unlike the Senators, their shutdown was more permanent due to the Great Depression continuing to take its toll upon the public (though the team was officially considered shutdown in 1936). As for the Yellow Jackets, they revived themselves after the Pirates moved to Philadelphia as a part of both the IHL^*(the International Hockey League) and the EAHL^*(the Eastern Amateur Hockey League), as well as an independent team before shutting down as a result of the Great Depression as well in 1937 (though that Yellow Jackets team has no obvious connections to the former Pirates and Quakers franchises). The team's existence did help fuel the revival of professional hockey after the end of the "Original Six" era, however, with both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia gaining new teams in the Penguins and the Flyers respectively.

Quebec Athletics

The Quebec Athletics (1878-1920) were once the oldest existing franchise of the entire NHL, playing one season there after starting out as the independent Quebec Hockey Club in their early years. This Quebec franchise first played only exhibition matches for a decade straight (including some Montreal Winter Carnival tournaments) before initially playing only one season at the AHAC. The team originally went dormant there for another season afterward before returning to the AHAC from 1892-1898. Once the AHAC folded, they moved on to other amateur hockey leagues from that early era in the CAHL and the ECAHA during the rest of the 1890's and early 1900's before those leagues also folded themselves. Quebec then briefly went to the CHA for its brief, failed season before being included as a new member of the NHA, though they did not play in its first season due to them being unsure of playing there at the time, to the point of being considered outcasts to the NHA at first. They later returned to action for the 1910-11 season going forward, playing as the Quebec Bulldogs according to reporters of the era at the time, though their new start in the NHA didn't go smoothly for the Bulldogs, finishing with a 4-12 record in their first proper season in that league. However, they quickly turned their fortunes around by their next season, going to first place with a 10-8 record against three other teams there before being Stanley Cup (and O'Brien Cup) champions for both 1912 and 1913 (the latter year had them finishing 16-4 against 6 teams in the NHA), though the second Stanley Cup was met with controversy due to the Victoria Aristocrats from the PCHA winning their series 2-1 against Quebec in Victoria instead of as a home series in Quebec.^*(The Stanley Cup Board of Trustees did not recognize the challenge as official due to their rules at time suggesting the winner of the Stanley Cup had to defend their title at the home area of the defending champions, which was in Quebec. While the Aristocrats did beat the Bulldogs 2-1 in a best-of-three series, they played their games in Victoria, which nullified the results to the Board of Trustees, which the PCHA objected to, but ultimately changed nothing to the Stanley Cup Board of Trustees.) While they did enjoy those highs from those two seasons, the Bulldogs never managed to repeat that success ever again, as they managed to place third in each of their next three seasons before finishing dead last in the first half of the final NHA season (which featured six teams at the time) before going second place (losing to a tiebreaker against Ottawa) in the second half of that final season when the league dropped down to four teams due to troubles in Toronto. While the Quebec franchise did intend on joining the NHL as a charter member alongside the Montreal Canadiens, the Wanderers, and the original Senators, the Bulldogs were completely unable to secure enough money to move to the NHL for even the first two seasons in the new hockey league before applying as a new franchise in the 1919-1920 season as the Quebec Athletic Club (officially the Quebec Athletics) for that season. In their only season under that name in the NHL, the played poorly despite regaining their star player, Joe Malone, from the Canadiens (finishing dead last with a 4-20 record, tying the Philadelphia Quakers above for the lowest amount of wins in a season, though Quebec only played against three other teams that season). After that season, the NHL purchased the team and moved them to Hamilton to become the Hamilton Tigers (1920-1925) in order to prevent the same belligerent hockey owner that destroyed the NHA from returning to the NHL. For their first four seasons in Hamilton, the Tigers still performed as the worst team in the NHL, winning nine games in their best full season in the league. In their final season, Hamilton looked to be Stanley Cup favorites due to their head coach change being successful for a 10-4-1 start in the first half. However, when they finished their second half of the season with a 19-10-1 record for first place in the league, the players revolted due to them being paid less than what they expected for more games played in a season, which resulted in the first players' strike in NHL history and led to the Canadiens being champions by default while the Hamilton players got fined $200 each and the franchise got permanently suspended for their actions. Interestingly, the entire team got bought out by the New York Americans above when they first entered the NHL (to the point of briefly being named the New York Hamilton Tigers in their inaugural training camp period), but their team history is not officially considered a part of Quebec/Hamilton's team history due to the owners of the players there not also owning the Hamilton Tigers franchise directly.

• Stanley Cup: THE championship trophy (although it didn't start out quite that way). For everything you ever wanted to know about it—and a few things you might not—see our page on it.
  • Current holder: Florida Panthers
• Prince of Wales Trophy: Awarded since 1924, it has been a conference (or equivalent) championship trophy for most of its history... although it began its life as the NHL championship trophy, and during the Original Six era was awarded to the top regular-season team (which now gets the Presidents' Trophy). Currently, it's the Eastern Conference trophy. The "Prince of Wales" here is the future Edward VIII (later the Duke of Windsor), who donated the trophy. Although initially it was decided that it would not be awarded during the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs due to the temporary suspension of the Eastern Conference, the league instead decided to award it to the winner of the Tampa Bay Lightning/New York Islanders semifinal series, since both teams were normally in the Eastern Conference.
  • Current holder: Florida Panthers
• Clarence S. Campbell Bowl: Awarded since 1968, the first after the NHL doubled in size from the "Original Six" to 12 teams. It's always been a conference (or equivalent) championship trophy, now for the Western Conference. Named after the third NHL President (the office now occupied by the Commissioner). Although initially it was decided that it would not be awarded during the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs due to the temporary suspension of the Western Conference, the league instead decided to award it to the winner of the Montreal Canadiens/Vegas Golden Knights semifinal series. This led to a bizarre situation where the Montreal Canadiens won their first and most likely only Campbell Bowl despite normally playing in the Eastern Conference.
  • Current holder: Edmonton Oilers
• Presidents' Trophy: Awarded since 1986 to the team with the best regular-season record, based on points earned. It's well known for being the land of teams who crumble in the playoffs, oftentimes in humiliating fashion — Presidents' Trophy winners have lost in the first round of the playoffs as often as they've won the Cup (eight times apiece). The most common fate overall is a second-round elimination, which has happened to thirteen winners as of 2025.
  • Current holder: Winnipeg Jets^note Eliminated in overtime of game six in the second round by the Stars

The league hands out a boatload of annual individual awards. Except as noted, these are voted on exclusively by sportswriters who cover the league.

• Hart Memorial Trophy: The league's main MVP award, awarded since 1924. The award criterion is explicitly stated as the "player judged most valuable to his team" during the regular season. Wayne Gretzky has a record nine of them, eight of them in succession.
  • Most Recent Winner: Connor Hellebuyck; G, Winnipeg Jets
• Lady Byng Memorial Trophy: First awarded in 1925, and presented to the "player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability." Pre-WWII player Frank Boucher has the record for most awards with seven (in eight years, no less); Gretzky has five. Some in the media have publicly called for the voting body to be changed to either the players or the on-ice officials, but nothing has come of it.^note A few other US sports awards, including one of the NHL's two MVP awards, are voted on by players. Giving officials the vote? Unheard-of anywhere... except Down Under, where game officials are the voting body for the most prestigious award in the Australian Football League, the Brownlow Medal.
  • Most Recent Winner: Anže Kopitar, C, Los Angeles Kings
• Vezina Trophy: Has been an award for goaltenders since it was first presented in 1937. It originally went to the league's top goaltender. Then, from 1947 to 1982, it went to the goalie(s) with the team that allowed the fewest goals during the regular season. Since then, it has returned to being an award for the top goalie, specifically the one "adjudged to be the best at this position." Unlike most seasonal awards, the Vezina is voted on by the league's general managers. Jacques Plante has the most awards with seven; under the current voting criteria, Dominik Hašek has the most with six.
  • Most Recent Winner: Hellebuyck
• Calder Memorial Trophy: Presented since 1937 to the league's top rookie. Famously the subject of a rule patch after the 1990 award went to the 31-year-old Sergei Makarov, who had starred with the famous Soviet Red Army team before political change allowed him to move to the NHL. Since then, there's an age limit—a winner can be no older than 25 as of September 15 of his rookie season. Also, the rules exclude any player who had appeared in more than 25 regular-season games in any single season, or anyone who has appeared in more than 6 regular-season games in any two seasons in any major professional league worldwide. Notably, that's why Gretzky doesn't have this award—the NHL counted his rookie season in the old World Hockey Association against him.
  • Most Recent Winner: Lane Hutson, D, Montreal Canadiens
• Art Ross Trophy: First presented in 1948, it's the oldest of several awards based strictly on statistical criteria. It goes to the league's leading scorer (combined points and assists) in the regular season. Gretzky has a record 10 awards, seven of them in a row.
  • Most Recent Winner: Nikita Kucherov, RW, Tampa Bay Lightning
• James Norris Memorial Trophy: Another position-specific award, presented since 1954 to the "defense player [i.e., defenseman] who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position." Bobby Orr has a record eight of these, all in succession.
  • Most Recent Winner: Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche
• Conn Smythe Trophy: Awarded since 1965 to the MVP of the Stanley Cup playoffs, with emphasis on "playoffs". Unlike the other three traditional major leagues of the US and Canada, this award is based on performance in the entire playoffs—not just the final game or series.^note The NFL hands out a Super Bowl MVP award; the NBA presents its analogous award to the MVP of the NBA Finals; and MLB presents MVP awards for both league championship series plus the World Series. Unlike most of the seasonal awards, three finalists are not named—only the winner is announced. Also differing from most seasonal awards, it's presented immediately after the end of the Stanley Cup Final, just before the Cup itself is presented. Patrick Roy is the only three-time winner, and also the only player to win it with more than one team (twice with the Habs, once with the Avs).
  • Most Recent Winner: Sam Bennett, C, Florida Panthers
• Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy: First presented in 1968 as a memorial to Bill Masterton, who died during that season from an on-ice injury while playing for the Minnesota North Stars—the only player in league history to die as a direct result of an injury sustained while playing.^note A couple of other players died from complications of on-ice injuries. Each team nominates one player who, in its view, exhibits "qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey", with the same sportswriters who vote on most of the other awards making the final decision. While it's not specifically a "comeback player of the year" award, the winner very often meets that criterion.
  • Most Recent Winner: Sean Monahan, C, Columbus Blue Jackets^note Signed with Columbus in the preceding offseason specifically to reunite with former Calgary Flames teammate Johnny Gaudreau, only for Gaudreau to be killed by a drunk driver before the season began. Despite this tragedy, put up one of his best seasons in years, with a respectable 57 points in 54 games.
• Ted Lindsay Award: The NHL's other MVP award, voted on by players instead of sportswriters and awarded since 1971. Originally known as the Lester B. Pearson Award, receiving its current name in 2010. As with some of the other awards listed here, Gretzky has the most, with five.
  • Most Recent Winner: Kucherov
• Jack Adams Award: The league's "coach of the year" award, presented since 1974. It's the only significant NHL award that's voted on exclusively by broadcast media. Shockingly, this one isn't automatically given to the coach of the Presidents' Trophy winner, but instead is usually given to a coach who has experienced an epic turnaround, especially a coach who was just hired to a new team and turns them from losers to a playoff team.^note This isn't really shocking at all, a sentence similar to the one you just read also appears on the Useful Notes pages for the NFL, NHL, and MLB under the awards section. Pat Burns has a record three of them.
  • Most Recent Winner: Spencer Carbery, Washington Capitals
• Frank J. Selke Trophy: Presented since 1978 to the league's top defensive forward. Patrice Bergeron has the most wins with six, with his last being in his final season in 2023.
  • Most Recent Winner: Aleksandr Barkov, C, Florida Panthers
• William M. Jennings Award: Another award based strictly on statistical criteria. First presented in 1982 as the replacement for the Vezina Trophy after the latter award reverted to its original purpose of honoring the league's top goaltender. Presented to any goaltender who played a minimum of 25 games for the team that allowed the fewest goals in the regular season. Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur share the record for most awards with five.
  • Most Recent Winner: Hellebuyck
• King Clancy Memorial Trophy: One of two "man of the year" awards (acknowledging both on-ice leadership and community service), presented since 1988 and voted on by a combined panel of print and broadcast media. The only person to have received this award more than once is Henrik Sedin, once by himself and once with his twin brother Daniel.
  • Most Recent Winner: Barkov
• Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy: Presented since 1999 to the leading goal scorer of the regular season. Alexander Ovechkin has the record for most awards, with nine.
  • Most Recent Winner: Leon Draisaitl, C, Edmonton Oilers
• Mark Messier Leadership Award: Presented since 2007 to the league's best on-ice and off-ice leader, as determined by Messier himself in consultation with league and team officials. No one has won this award more than once.
  • Most Recent Winner (2025): Alex Ovechkin, LW, Washington Capitals
• Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award: First presented in 2010, with the voting body consisting of the league's GMs, plus five NHL executives and five media members. As of the 2022–23 season, it's the only major award that isn't presented at the awards show, instead being announced during the playoffs and presented at the NHL Entry Draft. The 2023–24 season was the first in which finalists were announced. Following the 2019 death of former Maple Leafs GM and NHL executive Jim Gregory, the league added his name to the award. Lou Lamoriello, who had won the 2020 award, became the first two-time recipient in 2021; Jim Nill made it three in a row from 2023–25.
  • Most Recent Winner: Jim Nill, Dallas Stars
• E.J. McGuire Award of Excellence: Presented since 2015 to a prospect judged to have the best combination of character, skill, and athleticism, as determined by NHL Central Scouting. Originally presented at the NHL Entry Draft, but starting in 2023 became part of the awards show.
  • Most Recent Winner: Michael Misa, C, Saginaw Spirit (Ontario Hockey League)