The 1993–94 NHL season was the 77th regular season of the National Hockey League. The league expanded to 26 teams with the addition of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Florida Panthers. The Minnesota North Stars relocated to become the Dallas Stars. And the league was realigned to geographically-named conferences and divisions. The New York Rangers defeated the Vancouver Canucks in seven games to become the Stanley Cup champions. It was the Rangers' fourth championship overall, and their first in 54 seasons, since 1939–40.
The spectacular play of Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres ushered in a new era of goaltending dominance in the NHL. Only three teams reached the 300-goal plateau, and only one team, the Detroit Red Wings, averaged more than four goals scored per game.[1] Goaltenders combined for 99 shutouts during the regular season,[2] a mark that broke the all-time regular-season record of 85 set in 1974–75.[3]
The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Florida Panthers started play this season, increasing the league to 26 teams. The Ducks became the second team in the Greater Los Angeles area after the Los Angeles Kings, while the Panthers became the second team in the state of Florida after the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Minnesota North Stars relocated to Dallas, Texas to become the Dallas Stars. It was the first franchise relocation for the NHL since the Colorado Rockies became the New Jersey Devils in 1982–83.
The names of the conferences were changed from Campbell and Wales to Western and Eastern respectively, and the divisions' names were changed from Adams, Patrick, Norris, and Smythe to Northeast, Atlantic, Central, and Pacific respectively.[4] Each division had changes. The Northeast Division would welcome the Pittsburgh Penguins, previously from the Patrick Division. The Atlantic Division would welcome the newcomer Florida Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning, previously from the Norris Division. The Central Division would welcome the Winnipeg Jets, previously from the Smythe Division. The Pacific Division would welcome the newcomer Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. New league commissioner Gary Bettman, who had previously worked in the National Basketball Association (NBA), thought the old names could be confusing to non-traditional fans and believed that a change to geographically named divisions, as used in the NBA and most other North American professional sports, would be more easily understandable to new fans.
In addition, the playoff format was changed to a conference based seeding over division specific brackets: the division winners were seeded one-two by order of point finish, then the top six remaining teams in the conference were seeded three through eight.[4][5] However, unlike the NBA, the NHL matched the highest-seeded winners against the lowest-seeded winners in the second round. In order to reduce the number of long trips to and from the West Coast, whenever a Central Division team played a Pacific Division team in the playoffs, the format was 2–3–2 rather than the traditional 2–2–1–1–1, a format that was only used for the 1993–94 season.
The Panthers and Mighty Ducks set new records for first-year expansion teams. Both teams finished with 33 wins, surpassing the 31 wins of the Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings in 1967–68. That mark would not be topped by another expansion team until the Vegas Golden Knights notched their 34th win in their inaugural season on February 1, 2018, finishing with 43.[6] The Panthers also set a high-water mark in points, with 83 points, surpassing the previous record set by the Flyers' 73 points in 1967–68. The Golden Knights would eventually shatter this inaugural expansion team record by 26 points notching a total of 109 points in 2017–18.
bold – Qualified for playoffs; x – Won division; p – Won Presidents' Trophy (and division); * – Division leader
Divisions: CEN – Central, PAC – Pacific
bold – Qualified for playoffs; x – Won division; y – Won Conference (and division); * – Division leader
No = Division rank, CR = Conference rank, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF = Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points
Teams that qualified for the playoffs are highlighted in bold.
The top eight teams in each conference made the playoffs, with the two division winners seeded 1–2 based on regular season records, and the six remaining teams seeded 3–8. In each round, teams competed in a best-of-seven series (scores in the bracket indicate the number of games won in each best-of-seven series). The NHL used "re-seeding" instead of a fixed bracket playoff system. During the first three rounds, the highest remaining seed in each conference was matched against the lowest remaining seed, the second-highest remaining seed played the second-lowest remaining seed, and so forth. The higher-seeded team was awarded home-ice advantage. The two conference winners then advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals.
The NHL awards presentation took place on June 16, 1994.
[8]
[10]
The following is a list of players of note who played their first NHL game in 1993–94 (listed with their first team, asterisk(*) marks debut in playoffs):
The following is a list of players of note who played their last game in the NHL in 1993–94 (listed with their last team):
As a part of the 1992 strike settlement, the NHL and Bruce McNall's Multivision Marketing and Public Relations Co. organized 26 regular season games in cities without a franchise as a litmus test for future expansion.
The Stars played a neutral-site game in their previous market of Minnesota at the Target Center in Minneapolis, where they were greeted enthusiastically. The Minnesota North Stars' tradition of playing on New Year's Eve and holding a post-game skate on the ice was also continued with a game between the Flyers and Bruins.
The Lightning vs. Red Wings contest in Minneapolis was scheduled for Martin Luther King Day, a Monday, with an afternoon face-off at 2:05 PM. However, due to an error on the NHL's part, the Lightning believed themselves to be playing at 7:35 PM, an error that was only discovered two weeks prior to the game by reporters. The Lightning ended up playing an 8:05 PM game in Winnipeg, flying back to the U.S., and playing again 18 hours later in Minneapolis.
The Panthers, in the midst of a playoff race, played a March "home" game against the Maple Leafs 30 miles from Toronto, at Hamilton.
This was the sixth season of the league's Canadian national broadcast rights deals with TSN and Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. This was the last regular season before Saturday night doubleheaders became permanent on HNIC on CBC. TSN televised selected regular season weeknight games. Coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs was primarily on CBC, with TSN airing first round all-U.S. series.
This was the second season of ESPN's deal for U.S. national broadcast rights,[11] while NBC televised the All-Star Game for the fifth and final consecutive season.
ESPN's weekly regular season games were generally broadcast on Wednesdays and Fridays. ESPN also had Sunday games between the NFL and baseball seasons.[12] ESPN2 also began showing up to five games per week, branded as NHL Fire on Ice.[13]
ESPN's brokered deal with sister broadcast network ABC expanded to include weekly regional telecasts on the last three Sunday afternoons of the regular season.[14][15] This marked the first time that regular season NHL games were broadcast on American network television since 1974–75.[16] ABC then televised playoff games on first three Sundays of the postseason.[17] ESPN and ESPN2 televised selected first and second-round games. ESPN then had the Conference finals and the Stanley Cup Finals.
After the season, the NHL reached a five-year deal with Fox, replacing ABC and NBC as the league's U.S. broadcast television partner.[18]