Our timeline on the modern era of the NHL begins in 1980. This was the season the World Hockey Association (WHA) brought four new franchises into the league. Furthermore, one of those franchises was the Edmonton Oilers. And they had a kid named Wayne Gretzky who would define the next decade.
The arrival of the new teams expanded the league to 21 teams. That in turn inspired an expansion of the playoff format to be a 16-team bracket. While the bracket has undergone several tweaks over the years, it remains fundamentally the same today. The combination of the league’s greatest player and it’s familiar four-round tournament without byes make 1980 as a good a point as any in defining when the modern era of the NHL begins.
Our timeline goes all the through 2020, four decades of NHL history, split up into eras. The linked pages take you into the heart of each era.
The Dynasty Era (1980–93): The New York Islanders took over from Montreal and won four straight Stanley Cups. They were displaced by Gretzky’s Oilers who won four in five years.. Gretzky left for Los Angeles, and Edmonton still won one more. Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux led a back-to-back run, before Montreal and Gretzky met for one final echo of the old dynastic order in 1993.
The Modern NHL Arrives (1994–2003): Further expansion and a revised playoff format widened the competitive landscape. The New York Rangers ended a Stanley Cup drought of over 50 years. New Jersey was a rising force and Detroit and Colorado developed a rivalry whose intensity burned white-hot. New markets were gaining ground, and the road to the Stanley Cup was becoming less predictable.
The Salary Cap & Sun Belt Era (2004–07): Tampa Bay, Carolina and Anaheim brought the Stanley Cup to a succession of nontraditional markets. Between those championships, a labor dispute wiped out an entire season and produced a salary cap that changed how teams could build and sustain contenders. The NHL’s geographical expansion now had championship substance, while its economic structure entered a new phase.
The Cold Weather Resurgence: Crosby & Chicago (2008–17): Hockey’s traditional strongholds reasserted themselves in a league transformed by expansion and the salary cap. Sidney Crosby’s Penguins and a young Chicago Blackhawks core became its defining powers, while Detroit and Boston added championships of their own. Los Angeles interrupted the pattern with two Cups, but Pittsburgh and Chicago supplied the sustained excellence that anchored these ten seasons.
NHL Breakthroughs (2018–20): Washington’s regular-season success had repeatedly ended in playoff frustration. St. Louis had waited half a century for its first Stanley Cup. Tampa Bay’s talented roster had accumulated disappointments of its own. Over three seasons, each found a way through. Their breakthroughs closed longstanding stories while the Lightning’s championship also pointed toward the league’s next era.
2020 has been our universal endpoint for historical timelines across each sport, with the way COVID-inspired lockdowns impacted each league. 2020 was a pivot point year for the NHL in either case—Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup in the “bubble” of 2020 was a threshold moment that naturally moved into a new era, one where teams from the South and West have again been ascendant. That era continues to unfold, its end point still undefined.
Defining our current era is part of the future. For now, these period pieces cover 41 years of NHL lore.