National Hockey League (NHL) is the major professional hockey league in the United States and Canada. The NHL consists of 32 teams. The teams are divided into the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. Each conference has two divisions. In the Eastern Conference, they are the Atlantic Division and the Metropolitan Division. In the Western Conference, they are the Central Division and the Pacific Division.
The regular NHL season lasts from October to April. The top eight teams in each conference qualify for the postseason playoffs, which may last as late as June. The finalists from each conference play for the Stanley Cup , the trophy awarded to the NHL champion.
The National Hockey League was formed in Montreal in 1917 from an earlier professional league, the National Hockey Association. The four original teams were the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, and Toronto Arenas.
In 1924, the Boston Bruins became the first U.S. team to join the NHL. In 1925, the Hamilton franchise was moved to New York City and renamed the Americans, and a new team entered the NHL in Pittsburgh. In 1926, three more new teams entered the league, the New York Rangers, Chicago, and Detroit. The Pittsburgh team and the New York Americans later dropped out. By 1942, the NHL consisted of the Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Toronto Maple Leafs. This membership, known as the Original Six, remained unchanged until 1967. That year, the NHL doubled to 12 teams.
A bidding war for players began in 1972, when the 12-team World Hockey Association (WHA) was created. From 1970 to 1974, the NHL added six teams. Two teams merged into one in 1978, giving the league 17 teams. In 1979, the NHL and WHA agreed to merge. The NHL absorbed the WHA franchises in Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Quebec in Canada, and Hartford in the United States, bringing the number of teams to 21. The WHA had lured many top players from Europe, and the flow of Europeans increased after the merger. Mainly because of the creation of a sizeable European talent pool, by 2000 the NHL was able to expand to 30 teams. A new team in Las Vegas, the Vegas Golden Knights, was added in 2016, and the league’s 32nd team, the Seattle Kraken, was added in 2021.
In March 2020, the NHL’s regular season and playoffs were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic . COVID-19 , a contagious respiratory disease, first broke out in China in late 2019. It soon spread throughout the world. Most other sports leagues and sporting events around the world were similarly suspended or canceled. In May 2020, the NHL canceled the remaining regular season games. The Stanley Cup playoffs were played in August and September.
The league’s 2020-2021 season began in January 2021 with a shortened, 56-game schedule. The teams were temporarily realigned into four new regional divisions. For example, the seven Canadian teams were all assigned to one division. For the regular season, the teams only played the other teams in their division. The top four teams in each division advanced to the Stanley Cup playoffs in May.
