The Deep Dive, NHL History, Expansion, and the
Ghost Franchises. Explore the wild evolution
of professional hockey, from the chaotic 1910
NHA startup days to the 32 -team modern NHL.
We broke down the structural brilliance of the
original six era, the logistical hurdles of the
great expansion, forgotten ghost franchises like
the original Ottawa Senators, and how lockouts
and global events reshaped the league's history.
Perfect for hockey fans looking for deep historical
insights beyond the ice. Keywords NHL history,
original six, hockey expansion, Stanley Cup history,
NHL lockouts, ghost franchises, hockey records.
Welcome to the Deep Dive. We are jumping straight
into a massive piece of historical mapping today.
Yeah, a really massive one. We're using a comprehensive
Wikipedia article detailing the entire list of
NHL seasons as our primary source material. Which
covers a lot of ground. It does. The mission
for today is to track the structural and, well,
the economic evolution of professional ice hockey.
We're talking about following the timeline from
its highly volatile startup days back in 1910.
Right. Way before the modern era. Exactly. Looking
at the structural shifts, the franchise relocations,
the labor disputes, basically everything that
forged the multi -billion dollar 32 team global
enterprise operating in the 2025 -26 season.
OK, let's unpack this. Well, to really map the
NHL, you have to look at the proving ground that
came immediately before it. the National Hockey
Association or the NHA. The beta test. Yeah,
essentially a chaotic beta test for the modern
league. That organization ran from 1910 until
1917. And several of those early NHA teams were
actually the direct founding members in the NHL.
But the sport they were playing at the start
of the decade was structurally very distinct
from what emerged later. Yeah, just reading the
footnotes of these early NHA seasons, it reveals
just how fluid the regulations were. Oh, completely
fluid. I mean, they were operating on a schedule.
that traditionally kicked off in January and
wrapped up by March. They only finally decided
to start a season before the new year during
the 1910 -11 campaign. Right. But the most striking
details are the fundamental overhauls to the
rulebook. In the 1911 -12 season, they simply
eliminated the rover position overnight. Just
gone. Just gone. And simultaneously, they discarded
the format of playing two 30 -minute halves.
They swapped that out in favor of three 20 -minute
periods. What's fascinating here is how unilaterally...
the early ownership groups were willing to disrupt
the actual product on the ice. Yeah, it's wild
to think about. If you think about the modern
sports landscape today, any change to a legacy
rule, it undergoes years of committee reviews.
Player union negotiations. Exactly. Minor league
testing. But in 1911, the owners just fundamentally
altered the geometry of the ice and the physiological
demands of the game in a single offseason. You're
removing a skater. You're removing a skater.
And you're changing the endurance requirements
by adding a second intermission. It was a massive
disruption. to the players navigating that era.
And that structural tinkering, it extended to
the business side, too. Take the Toronto NHA
franchise owner, Eddie Livingstone. Oh, yeah.
Going into the 1916 -17 season, he orchestrated
the introduction of the split schedule. They
basically chopped a short 20 -game season straight
down the middle. Whoever won the first half would
face the winner of the second half for the championship.
If you consider the gate -driven economics of
the time, this was a blatant tactic to keep the
fan base engaged. To keep them buying tickets?
Exactly. Buying tickets all the way through the
winter rather than watching a single dominant
team just run away with the standings by February.
It was a necessary revenue preservation strategy.
Prior to that split schedule, the championship
usually defaulted to the team with the best rate.
season record with playoffs only triggered as
a tiebreaker yeah exactly yeah you needed artificial
stakes to keep the buildings full and speaking
of stakes the ultimate prize in the NHA was not
the Stanley Cup oh this is a great detail it
was the O 'Brien Cup yeah this detail from the
source material is the ultimate early 20th century
industrialist flex. It really is. The O 'Brien
family, they backed several NHA franchises and
they donated the championship trophy, but they
were also wealthy silver mine operators. Right.
They literally sourced the silver from their
own geographic mines to forge the league's championship
cup. It underscores how localized and privately
controlled the power dynamics were back then.
But that model of wealthy patrons and localized
control, it fractured incredibly fast as the
league transitioned. Yeah, it really did. When
the NHL formally replaced the NHA in 1917, that
perceived industrial stability just instantly
vanished. Oh, it was a logistical nightmare.
The inaugural 1917 -18 NHL season, they launched
with a four -team roster. You had the Montreal
Canadiens, the Montreal Wanderers, the Ottawa
Senators, and a Toronto franchise. A very small
circuit. And almost immediately, the Wanderers
collapse. They withdrew from the league having
played just six games. And digging into the source
tables, they didn't even play all set. No, they
didn't. They completed four and forfeited the
last two, leaving a brand new professional sports
league with a grand total of three teams to complete
its debut season. From an operations standpoint,
finishing a schedule with an odd number of three
teams is incredibly difficult. But they somehow
survived their own launch. Yeah, somehow. They
even ran the following year with just three teams
before the Quebec Bulldogs eventually returned
to round out a four -team circuit. The governance
was barely holding together. And the championship
hierarchy was even more convoluted. Right, because
winning the NHL didn't mean you won it all. Exactly.
The source documents clearly outline that up
until 1927, winning the NHL did not guarantee
you the Stanley Cup. You won the O 'Brien Cup
and eventually the Prince of Wales trophy starting
in 1925. But to get the Stanley Cup, the NHL
champion had to participate in a world series
of hockey. Right, against entirely separate organizations.
Specifically, the Pacific Coast or Western Canada
leagues. It functioned much like the early days
of baseball before the leagues officially merged
their postseason architecture. That makes sense.
It wasn't until after 1927 that the Stanley Cup
transitioned into the exclusive de facto championship
trophy for the NHL playoff winner, turning those
older silver trophies into just divisional or
runner -up hardware. Here's where it gets really
interesting. If you trace the season by season
data in the source down to the 1919 -20 campaign,
the playoff column features a single word. None.
None. Just blank. Because the league had retained
that split season format we discussed earlier,
they ran into a statistical wall. The original
Ottawa Senators were an absolute juggernaut that
year. They won everything. They won the first
half with a 9 -3 record. They won the second
half with a 10 -2 record. By winning both halves,
they effectively short -circuited the playoff
format. The league had no contingency plan for
a total sweep, so they just skipped the playoffs
entirely. Which really demonstrates the highly
reactive nature of early sports governance. They
were building the airplane while it was flying.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was. If an unprecedented
situation arose, the league office simply adapted
on the fly. You see this ad hoc survival instinct
most clearly in the franchise lineages themselves.
The source data tracks an incredible volume of
early instability. The ghost franchises are everywhere
in these early tables. You have the Quebec Bulldogs
sitting out the first two years, eventually taking
the ice and then packing up in 1920 to become
the Hamilton Tigers. Only to dissolve completely
by 1925. Exactly. But the trajectory of the original
Ottawa Senators is the most jarring. You are
looking at a team that dominated the 1920s with
multiple championships. Yet by 1934, they relocate
to become the St. Louis Devils, play a single
season, and get dissolved by the league. It is
a phenomenal case study in early sports economics.
On -ice dominance offered zero protection against
regional financial realities. Right. A team could
win championships and still fold if the local
market economics couldn't sustain the travel
and payroll. This relentless attrition eventually
forced the NHL to abandon its sprawling ambitions
and consolidate. And that retreat brings us to
the famous original six era. a defining period
that kicked off prior to the 1942 -43 season.
The catalyst for that era was the New York Americans
suspending operations. Right, which was a major
contraction. Yeah, it left the NHL with a heavily
concentrated six -team roster. Boston, Chicago,
Detroit, Montreal, the New York Rangers, and
Toronto. If we connect this to the bigger picture,
the original six era was essentially a quarter
-century monopoly on professional hockey talent.
25 straight years. 25 years, from 1942 until
1967. The NHL operated as a closed ecosystem.
It was a single division. They played schedules
ranging from 50 to eventually 70 games. This
era is heavily romanticized today, but structurally,
it was an incredibly rigid business model that
forced repetitive, high -stakes matchups. The
playoff format is the most fascinating part of
that business model. The top four out of those
six teams qualified for the postseason. If you
are tracking the math, that is a 66 % playoff
qualification rate every single year. Which is
huge. You are creating a scenario where these
rosters are playing each other constantly in
the regular season and then immediately facing
off in the playoffs. It artificially bred the
bitterest rivalries in the history of the sport.
The familiarity bred intense physical animosity,
but it also meant that a well -constructed roster
could monopolize the championship for years.
The talent tool wasn't diluted by expansion drafts,
so a few front offices built dynasties that simply
suffocated the rest of the league. The columns
in our source for the top record and champion
during this 25 -year stretch They read like a
repetitive loop of two franchises, the Detroit
Red Wings and the Montreal Canadiens. Total dominance.
Detroit maintained a vice grip on the top regular
season record for seven consecutive years between
1948 and 1955. And Montreal's postseason performance
was even more staggering. From the 1955 -56 season
through 1959 -60, the Canadiens captured five
consecutive Stanley Cups. A five -peat is a statistical
anomaly that is mathematically impossible to
replicate. Right. Competing leagues were threatening
to siphon off talent in markets, so the NHL executed
the Great Expansion. In 1967, the league hits
the gas pedal. They doubled in size overnight.
Jumping from 6 to 12 teams. For the 1967 -68
season, they absorbed massive new markets by
adding the California Seals, the Los Angeles
Kings, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Pittsburgh
Penguins, the Minnesota North Stars, and the
St. Louis Blues. Doubling the real estate of
a league shatters your existing operational framework.
You can no longer rely on a single division where
everyone plays a balanced schedule. No, the math
doesn't work. The source material maps out a
frantic period of format evolution triggered
by this growth. Initially, they split into two
divisions, culminating in the respective division
winners facing off. But as they expanded to 14,
then 18, and eventually 21 teams by the end of
the 1970s, the playoff architecture had to undergo
constant revisions. You see the introduction
of crossover seating, the shift to division -based
playoff brackets, and ultimately the conference
-based formats. The expansion stretched the league
so wide that identifying the best team became
complicated. To address this, they instituted
the President's Trophy in 1985 to officially
recognize the franchise with the premier regular
season point total, regardless of their division
or conference standing. Yet the expansion era
was incredibly volatile. The NHL was planting
flags in new cities, but not all of those markets
held firm. The stability of the original six
was replaced by corporate musical chairs. Think
about the experience of following this league
if you're a fan trying to track your local team's
lineage during this era. According to the source
footnotes, the Kansas City Scouts enter the league
in 1974. Yeah. Two seasons later, they relocate
to Denver to become the Colorado Rockies. Six
years after that, in 1982, the Rockies migrate
to East Rutherford to become the New Jersey Devils.
The California Golden Seals follow a similarly
chaotic trajectory. Right. They rebrand. moved
to Ohio to become the Cleveland Barons in 1976.
And within two years, the financial strain is
so severe that the franchise is forced into a
corporate merger with the Minnesota North Stars
in 1978. A corporate merger. Yeah, it was an
unprecedented mechanism for a sports league to
absorb a failing franchise. That sheer geographic
turbulence lays the groundwork for the modern
era, which kicks off in the early 1990s. The
source data from 1992 onward depicts a league
experiencing... massive revenue growth. Huge
growth. But simultaneously suffering through
severe labor disputes and global interruptions.
The modern administrative era is defined by the
appointment of Commissioner Gary Bettman in 1993,
coinciding with a strict geographical realignment
into Eastern and Western conferences. Right.
But as the season by season tables reveal, modernizing
the league's economic structure resulted in a
highly adversarial relationship between the ownership
board and the players union. The labor lockouts
create massive visible scars in the historical
data. The 1994 -95 season was heavily truncated,
slashed down to a 48 -game intra -conference
sprint. Yeah. You see the exact same 48 -game
anomaly repeat decades later during the 2012
-13 lockout. The most extreme data point is the
2004 -05 season. If you scroll to the 88th entry
in the source list, the row contains no champions,
no top records, and no games played. Nothing.
The entire season was eradicated by a labor dispute.
Yet the source notes the NHL officially counts
that lost year in its historical tally of seasons.
They recognize the chronological gap as an official
season where no hockey occurred. If you are a
fan holding season tickets in 2004, you were
suddenly left staring at an empty arena for an
entire year. Exactly. But labor relations weren't
the only force capable of halting the schedule.
The COVID -19 pandemic forced the NHL into some
of the most bizarre logistical gymnastics in
its history. The 2019 -20 season was abruptly
paused in March. Teams had played anywhere from
68 to 71 games. The league couldn't balance the
math, so the Boston Bruins were awarded the top
record based purely on points percentage. To
finish the year, they engineered a sprawling
one -time 24 -team playoff format inside isolated
bubbles. And the logistical shockwaves extended
directly into the 20s. 2021 season. They had
to execute a 56 game schedule. The cross -border
travel restrictions between the United States
and Canada completely invalidated the traditional
conference alignments. They couldn't cross the
border. All right. The NHL had to silo its franchises.
They created four temporary divisions, most notably
grouping all seven Canadian teams into an exclusive
North division where they exclusively played
each other. It essentially forced the Canadian
franchises back into a regionalized early 20th
century league structure just to keep the television
contracts fulfilled. Just to survive. But despite
lost seasons and global pandemics, the expansion
machine never stopped. The NHL pushed to its
current 32 team capacity by adding the Vegas
Golden Knights in 2017. And the Seattle Kraken
in 2021. And then the Coyotes. Yes. Just prior
to the 2024 -25 season, we witnessed the Arizona
Coyotes cease operations with their entire hockey
asset portfolio. A roster, coaching staff, draft
picks. Transferred to a new expansion entity,
the Utah Mammoth. It is a sophisticated, multi
-billion dollar echo of the 1970s Barron's and
North Star's merger. The mechanisms of survival
and relocation are much more legally complex
today, but the core economic pressures remain
identical. So what does this all mean? If you
pull back and look at the aggregate all -time
top regular season record holders table summarizing
the source material, it acts as a permanent ledger
for everything we have covered. It quantifies
the legacy of the different structural eras we've
analyzed. Sitting untouchable at the top of that
ledger are the Montreal Canadiens with 23 top
regular season records. Two of those are actually
legacy records carried over from the NHA days.
Wow. The Detroit Red Wings follow with 18 and
the Boston Bruins hold 14. These are the titans
of the original six. Their ability to stockpile
top records during that 25 year closed ecosystem
built a statistical fortress that modern expansion
teams simply cannot mathematically breach. But
the most revealing entry in the entire record
book is the team occupying the fourth overall
slot, the original Ottawa Senators. The ultimate
ghost franchise. They amassed nine top regular
season records during the wild west of the NHA
and the early NHL. This is a business entity
that folded in the 1930s. It has not existed
for the better part of a century. Yet they sit
higher on the all time performance list than
modern legacy franchises like the Toronto Maple
Leafs, the Chicago Blackhawks or the Edmonton
Oilers. It is a remarkable historical footprint.
We tracked a messy 1910 startup that was casually
deleting positions and changing the game clock
on a whim. We watched it navigate the bumpy World
Series era, consolidate into the ruthless original
six monopoly, explode through the great expansion.
and weather lockouts and pandemics to become
a 32 -team international juggernaut. This raises
an important question. We have seen how the original
Ottawa Senators, a true founding dynasty, were
completely erased from the map by the regional
financial pressures of the 1930s. Today, maintaining
a 32 -team league requires massive climate -controlled
arenas and staggering municipal energy costs
to maintain artificial ice surfaces across diverse
global markets. If you look at the economics
of climate change and the rising cost of energy
required to sustain these winter sports environments,
how will the NHL structure itself over the next
100 years? Will the literal cost of freezing
water in non -traditional markets eventually
force this massive 32 -team footprint to contract
or fundamentally alter its geography once again?
That is a phenomenal angle to consider as we
watch the modern era unfold. Thank you for joining
us on this deep dive into the architecture of
the NHL seasons. We'll be back next time to extract
the insights from another stack of research.
Until then, keep analyzing the data, keep questioning
the structures around you, and keep wondering
what history is being written right now.