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 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]

League business

For this season, 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.

Franchise changes

• The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Florida Panthers started play this season.
• 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.
• This was the first season that the San Jose Sharks actually played in San Jose, moving into the new San Jose Arena after spending their first two years at the Cow Palace in nearby Daly City.
• It was the final season that the St. Louis Blues played at the St. Louis Arena and the Chicago Blackhawks played at Chicago Stadium.
• The Tampa Bay Lightning, deeming their temporary arena, the Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds, too small, moved to St. Petersburg and the rechristened ThunderDome. They would stay in the stadium for three seasons while the Ice Palace was being built.

Teams

Regular 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.

Final standings

bold – Qualified for playoffs; x – Won division; p – Won Presidents' Trophy (and division); * – Division leader Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=1993–94_NHL_season
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