The League's Story
The National Hockey League is the oldest professional sports league in North America still playing — born in 1917 when four teams broke away to form something new, and still, more than a century later, the hardest trophy in sports to win. The Stanley Cup predates the league itself by twenty-four years: first awarded in 1893, a silver bowl purchased by Lord Stanley of Preston that became hockey's holy grail. Thirty-two franchises now chase it, from Original Six cathedrals to desert rinks nobody saw coming, and every spring sixteen of them go to war for sixteen wins.
The league's story comes in eras. The Original Six (1942–1967) — Canadiens, Maple Leafs, Red Wings, Bruins, Blackhawks, Rangers — when the Cup was a neighborhood argument between six cities. Then the great expansion of 1967 doubled the league overnight and opened the floodgates: the Broad Street Bullies, the Islanders dynasty, the Oilers' 1980s fireworks, the Devils' neutral-zone trap, the dead-puck era, and the 2005 lockout that gave us the salary cap and the speed revolution that followed. Each era produced its icons — Richard, Howe, Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux, Crosby, Ovechkin — and each icon dragged the game somewhere new.
The modern NHL is the parity era. The cap keeps rosters honest, and the Cup has become the league's great equalizer: no team has repeated since Tampa Bay in 2020–21, and the last decade has belonged to whoever gets hot in April. The Florida Panthers owned the mid-2020s — beating the Edmonton Oilers in seven games in 2024 and in six in 2025, back-to-back championships built on a forecheck that felt like a natural disaster. Their three-peat bid died in the 2026 playoffs, and what rose in its place was a story twenty years in the making.
The 2026 Stanley Cup belongs to the Carolina Hurricanes. They were wire-to-wire contenders — in a playoff spot all season, first in the Metropolitan Division from mid-December, an eighth straight postseason berth — and they bulldozed through the East, dropping one game combined to Ottawa, Philadelphia, and Montreal. The Final was a six-game war with the Vegas Golden Knights: Game 1 to Vegas 5–4, Carolina's overtime answer in Game 2, a double-overtime Vegas win in Game 3, then three straight Carolina victories, sealed by a 3–0 shutout in Game 6 at T-Mobile Arena on June 14.
The heroes were worth the wait. Jordan Staal, the 37-year-old captain, won the Conn Smythe Trophy with goals in five straight Final games — tying an NHL record — and became the first player in league history to go seventeen years between Stanley Cups, from his 2009 title with Pittsburgh to this one. Rod Brind'Amour, who captained the 2006 championship team, coached this one: twenty years, same franchise, both sides of the bench. Taylor Hall, the 2010 first-overall pick, finally lifted the Cup after nearly 1,100 games and seven teams across sixteen seasons. Jaccob Slavin became the first American since Miracle on Ice's Ken Morrow to win the Cup and Olympic gold in the same season. And when Frederik Andersen went down hurt, Brandon Bussi stepped in and closed the final three games with a .931 save percentage. The 2026 postseason also gave Buffalo its first playoff hockey since 2011 — Tage Thompson's third-period comeback against Boston in Game 1 was the spring's loudest building.
Now the 2026–27 season is underway — puck dropped September 29 — and the storylines are stacked. Alex Ovechkin, 41, the NHL's all-time goals king, signed a one-year deal with the Washington Capitals: possibly the farewell tour of the greatest goal-scorer ever. Connor McDavid, 29 with two years left on his contract, is still chasing the Cup that would end Canada's drought — no Canadian team has won since Montreal in 1993 — after losing back-to-back Finals to Florida. Carolina is chasing the rare repeat, even without Seth Jarvis (offseason shoulder surgery), leaning on two-way pillar Sebastian Aho. The Panthers reloaded anyway, trading for Brady Tkachuk to join his brother Matthew — the league's most hated and most effective family business. Winnipeg is in chaos after Connor Hellebuyck — fresh off winning Olympic gold for Team USA over Canada at Milano Cortina — demanded a trade and got suspended for skipping camp. And in the desert, the Utah Mammoth are building an identity in their second season under the new name.
This is NHL Rewind — our way of covering the league. The grid above is all 32 teams: Original Six royalty like the Canadiens and Bruins, Sun Belt powers like the Panthers and Golden Knights, the Capitals in the Ovechkin farewell season, the Oilers with McDavid's clock ticking, the Jets in the middle of a goaltending earthquake, the Sabres finally back in the dance, the Mammoth writing their first chapters. Each team page carries the live record, schedule, results, roster, and the latest headlines — plus the stories that make each franchise what it is. Tap a logo. Pick your team. The Cup is the hardest trophy in sports to win, and the road to June starts here.