For the first time, there was a break in the regular season to allow NHL players join their respective national hockey teams competing at the Winter Olympics.
To accommodate the incoming expansion teams, 1997–98 became the last season of the four-division quasi-geographic alignment inherited from the traditional Adams/Patrick/Norris/Smythe set.
The league would change the following season to a six-division, more purely geographic alignment, with the Toronto Maple Leafs moving from the Western to Eastern Conference, among others.
The Vancouver Canucks and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim opened the season with a two-game series at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan, on October 3 and 4, 1997, the first time the NHL played regular games outside of North America.
The league's break lasted 17 days from February 8 to 24 while NHL players participated at the men's hockey event at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
He zeroed the New York Rangers three times, and Los Angeles, Anaheim, Tampa Bay, Boston, Calgary, Washington, Montreal, Ottawa, Pittsburgh and Edmonton once each.
The league then signed a new deal with the fledgling CTV Sportsnet, replacing TSN as the national cable television partner.
Fox had the All-Star Game, and the network's weekly regional telecasts then expanded from six to 11 weekend afternoons between January and April.
In August 1998, the NHL signed a five-year, $600 million rights agreement with ABC Sports/ESPN, and thus Fox elected not to use the system in the subsequent "lame duck" season.