After Canadian National Hockey Association (NHA) was broken, the owners started discussing over the future of NHA, which gave birth to NHL November 22, 1917. Three former NHA franchises, the Canadiens, Wanderers and Senators were the founding members of the NHL, along with Toronto under new management.
Even though the NHL struggled to stay in the initial years, but the hockey players (teams) were very successful on the ice. Since 1926, the NHL was the only league competing for the Stanley Cup. Then the NHL started a process of expansion as the Boston Bruins, the first U.S.-based NHL franchise and Montreal Maroons entered the league in 1924–25; the New York Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates entered in the 1925–26; and the New York Rangers, Chicago Black Hawks, and Detroit Cougars entered in the 1926–27, which n turn raises the number of hockey teams in the NHL to ten. But the Great Depression and the onset of World War II, reduced the number to six and were collectively known as the Original Six.
In 1974, the NHL was aligned into 2 conferences: the Clarence Campbell (representing the west) and the Prince of Wales (representing the east) each had 2 divisions. In 1980s, NHL was expanded with nine new franchises. Now at the present days, NHL has 30 teams.
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