1992–93 NHL season

Expansion

This season saw two new clubs join the league: the Ottawa Senators and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Senators were the second Ottawa-based NHL franchise (see Ottawa Senators (original)) and brought professional hockey back to Canada's capital, while the Tampa Bay franchise (headed by Hockey Hall of Fame brothers Phil and Tony Esposito) strengthened the NHL's presence in the American Sun Belt, which had first started with the birth of the Los Angeles Kings in 1967. The 1992 NHL expansion draft was held on June 18 to fill the rosters of the Senators and the Lightning.

This was the final season of the Wales and Campbell Conferences, and the Adams, Patrick, Norris, and Smythe divisions. Both the conferences and the divisions would be renamed to reflect geography rather than the league's history for the following season. This was also the last year (until the 2013 realignment) in which the playoff structure bracketed and seeded teams by division; they would be bracketed and seeded by conference (as in the NBA) for 1993–94.

Entry draft

The 1992 NHL Entry Draft was held on June 20 at the Montreal Forum in Montreal, Quebec. Roman Hamrlik was selected first overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Bettman named first NHL Commissioner

In the summer of 1992, NHL owners replaced NHL President John Ziegler with Gil Stein on an interim basis. Ziegler had held the position for 15 years, but owners became unhappy following the 1992 NHL strike. On February 1, 1993, Gary Bettman became the first NHL Commissioner, with the office originally created as senior to Stein's position as NHL President. Working towards labour peace was among the tasks handed to Bettman when the owners hired him.^[5] After Stein's tenure expired on July 1, 1993, the President's office was merged into the Commissioner's.

Centennial celebration of the Stanley Cup

All teams wore a commemorative patch this year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Stanley Cup.

Rule changes

• Instigating a fight results in a game misconduct penalty.
• Substitutions disallowed for coincidental minor penalties when teams are at full strength, reversing a rule passed for the 1985–86 season.
• Minor penalty for diving introduced.

Neutral site games

As a part of the 1992 strike settlement, the regular season was expanded from 82 to 84 games per team. The NHL and Bruce McNall's Multivision Marketing and Public Relations Co. organized the additional 24 regular season games in 15 cities that did not have a franchise, providing as a litmus test for future expansion. Four of the cities chosen – Phoenix, Atlanta, Dallas and Miami – were eventually the sites of expansion or relocations, and although neither Cleveland nor Cincinnati received NHL franchises, there would be one placed in Columbus, located halfway between the two cities. Two arenas that hosted neutral-site games had hosted NHL teams before: Atlanta's The Omni (Atlanta Flames) and Cleveland's Richfield Coliseum (Cleveland Barons).

The Hartford-St. Louis game was originally scheduled to be played on December 29, 1992, in Birmingham, Alabama.

All-Star Game

The All-Star Game was held on February 6, 1993, at the Montreal Forum, the home of the Montreal Canadiens.

Highlights

Teemu Selanne of the Winnipeg Jets shattered the rookie scoring record by scoring 76 goals and 56 assists for 132 points this season. He was named the winner of the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL Rookie of the Year, and his goals and points marks remain the NHL rookie records as of 2024^[update].

The New York Rangers missed the playoffs. This marked the first time since the President's Trophy had been introduced that the previous season's top team missed the next year's playoffs.

For the first time in his NHL career, Wayne Gretzky did not finish in the top three in scoring. A back injury limited Gretzky to 45 games in which he scored 65 points.

The Pittsburgh Penguins set a new NHL record, winning 17 consecutive games. The streak ending with the regular season.

Final standings

Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, Pts = Points

Bracket

The top four teams in each division qualified for the playoffs. 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). In the division semifinals, the fourth seeded team in each division played against the division winner from their division. The other series matched the second and third place teams from the divisions. The two winning teams from each division's semifinals then met in the division finals. The two division winners of each conference then played in the conference finals. The two conference winners then advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Scoring leaders

^[11]

Leading goaltenders

All-Star teams

Major transactions

• June 30, 1992: Eric Lindros traded from Quebec to Philadelphia for Peter Forsberg, Ron Hextall, Mike Ricci, Kerry Huffman, Steve Duchesne, "future considerations" (eventually became enforcer Chris Simon), two first-round draft picks and US$15 million. One of the draft picks was used by the Nordiques to select goaltender Jocelyn Thibault, the other was traded twice and ultimately used by the Washington Capitals to select Nolan Baumgartner.

Records broken/tied

Debuts

The following is a list of players of note who played their first NHL game in 1992–93 (listed with their first team):

• Byron Dafoe, Washington Capitals
• Roman Hamrlik, Tampa Bay Lightning
• Darius Kasparaitis, New York Islanders
• Steve Konowalchuk, Washington Capitals
• Alexei Kovalev, New York Rangers
• Robert Lang, Los Angeles Kings
• Eric Lindros, Philadelphia Flyers
• Vladimir Malakhov, New York Islanders
• Michael Nylander, Hartford Whalers
• Sandis Ozolinsh, San Jose Sharks
• Teemu Selanne, Winnipeg Jets
• Bryan Smolinski, Boston Bruins
• Martin Straka, Pittsburgh Penguins
• Alexei Zhamnov, Winnipeg Jets
• Sergei Zubov, New York Rangers

Last games

The following is a list of players of note who played their last game in the NHL in 1992–93 (listed with their last team):

• Reggie Lemelin, Boston Bruins
• Brent Ashton, Calgary Flames
• John Ogrodnick, Detroit Red Wings
• Tim Kerr, Hartford Whalers
• Bobby Smith, Minnesota North Stars
• Brian Mullen, New York Islanders
• Brad Marsh, Ottawa Senators
• Laurie Boschman, Ottawa Senators
• Brian Hayward, San Jose Sharks
• Brian Lawton, San Jose Sharks
• Doug Wilson, San Jose Sharks
• Rick Wamsley, Toronto Maple Leafs
• Steve Kasper, Tampa Bay Lightning
• Ryan Walter, Vancouver Canucks
• Rod Langway, Washington Capitals
• Randy Carlyle, Winnipeg Jets

Four of the five remaining helmetless players in the league played their final games: Carlyle, Marsh, Langway, and Wilson. The only remaining helmetless player was Craig McTavish who retired following the 1996–97 season.

Prince of Wales Conference

Clarence Campbell Conference

Canada

This was the fifth season of the league's Canadian national broadcast rights deals with TSN and Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. Saturday night regular season games continued to air on CBC, while TSN televised selected weeknight games. Coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs was primarily on CBC, with TSN airing first round all-U.S. series.

United States

ESPN signed an agreement for U.S. national broadcast rights, replacing SportsChannel America.^[12][13] However, SportsChannel America contended that its contract with the NHL gave them the right to match third-party offers for television rights for the 1992–93 season. Thus the network accused the NHL of violating a nonbinding clause, arguing that it had been deprived of its contractual right of first refusal for the 1992–93 season. Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court justice Shirley Fingerwood would deny SportsChannel America's request for an injunction against the NHL. Upholding that opinion, the appellate court found the agreement on which SportsChannel based its argument to be "too imprecise and ambiguous" and ruled that SportsChannel failed to show irreparable harm.^[14][15]

ESPN's weekly regular season games were generally broadcast on Wednesdays and Fridays. ESPN also had Sunday games between the NFL and baseball seasons.^[16]

ESPN's deal did not include the All-Star Game; NBC instead televised it for the fourth consecutive season.

Through a brokered deal, sister broadcast network ABC televised five weekly playoff telecasts on Sunday afternoons starting on April 18 and ending on May 16. The first three weeks were regional coverage of various first and second round games, while the fourth and fifth games were nationally televised second round and Conference final contests, respectively.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]} This marked the first time that playoff National Hockey League games were broadcast on American network television^[23] since 1975.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]} ESPN then televised selected first and second round games, the rest of the Conference finals, and the Stanley Cup Finals.