​NHL commissioner Gary Bettman speaks with media before game 3 of a first-round NHL Stanley Cup playoff series between the Utah Mammoth and the Vegas Golden Knights at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, April 24, 2026.
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Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News
The early days of NHL history can be divided into two 24-year blocks.The first, from 1917 to 1941, featured a revolving door of teams with near-constant change. The second, 1942 to 1966, was more stable, with a group of six squads that remained in place.In 1967, everything exploded.The league doubled in size, bringing the total to 12. Additional squads would join one or two at a time over the next 33 years — some via expansion, others through the collapse of the World Hockey Association — and by the turn of the millennium, it was a 30-team league.The additions of the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017 and the Seattle Kraken in 2021 brings the NHL to its current size: 32. But it doesn’t seem to be stopping there.Nothing is official yet, but the NHL is considering another round of expansion.As always, the fans’ opinions range from full support to total opposition. Both sides have valid reasons for their beliefs. Here are some points for fans to know as they form their own opinions.Why should the NHL not expand again?Divisional alignmentA little bit of middle school math will tell you that 32 is divisible by a lot of different numbers.It can be split evenly into two conferences of 16. Each conference can then be divided into two divisions of eight.The new 84-game schedule makes it even better: In a given season, each team can play its divisional rivals four times, the remaining in-conference teams three times and the opposing conference squads twice.Growing to 33 or 34 teams would make all that math uneven.It wouldn’t be the first time. The NHL has periodically had mismatched divisions throughout its history — as recent as 2020, just before the Kraken began playing.But they just got it all solved. Why mess it up again?Championship rarity and playoff structureAs it stands now, 31 NHL fan bases watch their teams fail in a given year. There’s only one Stanley Cup. Adding more teams means more disappointment.If there were no repeat winners, each fan would get to see their team win two to three times in their life. There are plenty of repeat winners, though, making it likely that many fans will never watch their team hoist the trophy.By contrast, every “Original Six” team won multiple times during the early era of the NHL.It’s not only about winning, though.Until 2017, more than half the teams in the league made the playoffs. Today, it’s precisely half. If the playoff structure remains