The NHL was founded in 1917 as a successor to the National Hockey Association (NHA), starting out with four teams from the predecessor league, and eventually grew to thirty-two in its current state.
The NHL has expanded and contracted numerous times throughout its history, including in 1979 when four teams were added from the World Hockey Association (WHA).
However, after completing four games, the Wanderers withdrew from the league due to their arena burning down, and the NHL continued that season and the next with only three teams.
The NHL continued to expand the following 1926–27 season, adding the Chicago Black Hawks, the Detroit Cougars, and the New York Rangers, growing to ten teams, thus more than doubling its size in its first decade of existence.
[1] For the 1967–68 season, six new teams were added to the NHL: the California Seals, the Los Angeles Kings, the Minnesota North Stars, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the St. Louis Blues.
[1] The Sabres and the Canucks were placed in the East (partially as an effort to provide greater balance between the divisions, and also so they would have rivalries with the other two Canadian teams), while the Chicago Black Hawks moved to the West.
Two more teams joined for the 1974–75 NHL season, the Washington Capitals and the Kansas City Scouts, but the ongoing competition from the WHA meant that the overall revenue stream of the NHL had not improved, so the league kept the expansion fee for new owners at the $6 million ($37.1 million today) of two years and four years earlier.
The teams were mixed up regardless of North American geography, and thus the new conferences and divisions were not named after geographical references.
Going into the 1976–77 NHL season, the California Golden Seals relocated to become the Cleveland Barons, and the Kansas City Scouts moved to become the Colorado Rockies.
[1] These new NHL teams were the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and the original Winnipeg Jets.
The divisions were effectively meaningless as all teams played a balanced schedule and each round of the playoffs was re-seeded by league point standings rather than divisional.
While the pace of expansion and relocation slowed after the 1999–2000 season, growth and change continued to be a normal development.
For the next 17 seasons, the NHL maintained 30 teams, the second longest period of membership stability in its history, the first being the Original Six.
However, disagreement between the NHL Board of Governors and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) caused it to be pushed to 2013.
On December 5, 2011, the NHL Board of Governors originally approved a conference realignment plan to move from a six-division setup to a four-conference structure.
The league began its second century in 2017 and has continued to grow by adding the Vegas Golden Knights, Seattle Kraken, and Utah Hockey Club.
However, it has also seen the Arizona Coyotes indefinitely suspend operations following the 2023–24 season, with the team's hockey assets, including its roster and coaches, being transferred to the newly-founded Utah franchise.
The primary considerations acknowledged by the league were the ongoing restrictions and quarantine requirements affecting the ability of its teams to cross the Canada–United States border.
As a result, on December 20, 2020, the league announced it had temporarily suspended the Eastern and Western Conferences and realigned to four non-conference divisions: North, East, Central, and West.
On December 4, 2018, Seattle was announced as the location of a thirty-second franchise to begin play in the 2021–22 season, with an expansion fee of $650 million.
[11] On April 18, 2024, the Arizona Coyotes were deactivated, and its players and personnel were transferred to the Utah Hockey Club.
[13] As of July 2024[update], the league has not yet indicated whether the Arizona franchise will now fold outright, hold the rights to the Coyotes and wait for a potential expansion team, and/or whether its history, records and/or intellectual property will be transferred to the Utah Hockey Club and/or split between Utah and the current Winnipeg Jets.
There have been rumors and talks of potential new sites for existing or new teams in various locations in the United States and Canada,[16] including Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Hartford, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Omaha, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon), Quebec City, San Diego, Saskatoon, and a second Southern Ontario team (although the league has actively blocked all of the Southern Ontario efforts to date, including in Hamilton, citing territorial concerns with the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs).