1992–93 NHL season | |
---|---|
League | National Hockey League |
Sport | Ice hockey |
Duration | October 6, 1992 – June 9, 1993 |
Number of games | 84 |
Number of teams | 24 |
Regular season | |
Presidents' Trophy | Pittsburgh Penguins |
Season MVP | Mario Lemieux (Penguins) |
Top scorer | Mario Lemieux (Penguins) |
Playoffs | |
Eastern champions | Montreal Canadiens |
Eastern runners-up | New York Islanders |
Western champions | Los Angeles Kings |
Western runners-up | Toronto Maple Leafs |
Playoffs Playoffs MVP | Patrick Roy (Canadiens) |
Stanley Cup | |
Champions | Montreal Canadiens |
Runners-up | Los Angeles Kings |
The 1992–93 NHL season was the 76th regular season of the National Hockey League. Each player wore a patch on their jersey throughout the 1992–93 regular season and playoffs to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Stanley Cup. It proved, at the time, to be the highest-scoring regular season in NHL history, as a total of 7,311 goals were scored over 1,008 games for an average of 7.25 per game. Twenty of the twenty-four teams scored three goals or more per game, and only two teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks, allowed fewer than three goals per game. Only 68 shutouts were recorded during the regular season. Twenty-one players reached the 100-point plateau and fourteen reached the 50-goal plateau. The Montreal Canadiens won their league-leading 24th Cup by defeating the Los Angeles Kings four games to one. As of 2017[update], this is the last time that a Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup.
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.
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 U.S. Sun Belt, which had first started with the birth of the Los Angeles Kings in 1967.