Among other duties, the commissioner leads collective bargaining negotiations on behalf of the league and appoints officials for all NHL games.

This was in 1932–33 when the owner of the Chicago Black Hawks, Frederic McLaughlin, circulated a letter to the NHL board of governors to remove him.

He was eventually convinced to assume the presidency in 1945, but in September 1946, amid frustrations with the Board of Governors for their cancellation of the suspended Brooklyn Americans franchise that he had sought to revive, he handed over the reins to his assistant, Clarence Campbell, a former NHL referee who had just returned from military service in Europe and had been in the job for less than a month.

One of Clarence Campbell's first acts of authority was in 1948, when he expelled players Billy Taylor and Don Gallinger from the NHL for betting on games.

As NHL president, Campbell is perhaps best remembered for suspending Montreal Canadiens superstar Maurice Richard for the remaining three games of the 1955 regular season and for the entirety of the playoffs.

Throughout the first period he was taunted and pelted with debris by outraged Montreal fans, who saw him as a prime example of the city's English-Canadian elite oppressing the French-Canadian majority.

After a tear gas bomb was released in the arena, Campbell exited the building, the game was forfeited to the Red Wings, and the Forum was evacuated.

He kept the league alive when the World Hockey Association raided its talent in the 1970s, and often worked 18 hours a day in his office.

It was under Ziegler's watch that the WHA disbanded in 1979, and the NHL absorbed four of its teams (the Edmonton Oilers, Quebec Nordiques, Hartford Whalers, and original Winnipeg Jets), and near the end of his tenure in 1991, the San Jose Sharks began play, returning the NHL to the Bay Area for the first time since 1975.

Ziegler had been forced out by owners dissatisfied with his agreement with the NHLPA, that ended a ten-day strike initiated by Bob Goodenow.

[6] Stein oversaw a further expansion of the NHL, in that the Tampa Bay Lightning and the new Ottawa Senators began play in the fall of 1992.

The league hired an executive search firm to help select someone for their newly created office of commissioner, at the same time that Stein's appointment as president was announced.

[7] The owners hired Bettman with the mandate of selling the game in the U.S. markets, ending labour unrest, completing expansion plans, and modernizing the views of the "old-guard" within the ownership ranks.

[8] When Bettman started as commissioner, the league had already expanded by three teams to 24 since 1991, and two more were set to be announced by the expansion committee: the Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, who would begin play in 1993–94.

The Nashville Predators (1998), Atlanta Thrashers (1999), Minnesota Wild (2000), Columbus Blue Jackets (2000), Vegas Golden Knights (2017) and the Seattle Kraken (2021) have been added during Bettman's tenure.

In addition, five franchises have relocated during Bettman's tenure – the Minnesota North Stars to Dallas (1993), the Quebec Nordiques to Denver (1995), the original Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix (1996), the Hartford Whalers to North Carolina (1997) and the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg (2011),[10] while the Arizona Coyotes suspended operations in 2024 and a new team in Salt Lake City was established.

As a result, there has been significant growth in the sport of hockey at the grassroots level with children in the U.S. South playing the game in increasing numbers.

"[14] Bettman has also been accused of having an "anti-Canadian" agenda,[15] with critics citing the relocation of the franchises in Quebec City and Winnipeg and his apparent refusal to help stop it, along with the aborted sale of the Nashville Predators in 2007 to interests that would have moved the team to Hamilton, Ontario.

"[20] By the end of the deal in 2004, the owners were claiming that player salaries had grown far faster than revenues, and that the league as a whole lost over US$300 million in 2002–03.

[24] The deal was significant, as a network television contract in the United States was long thought unattainable during the presidency of John Ziegler.

These moves left Bell Media and its TSN networks shut out of NHL broadcasts except for its regional properties.