2023-24

• 2023-24 marks the final season that Adidas is supplying NHL uniforms. Fanatics, complete with its spotty history of quality control, takes over the duties in the fall of 2024.

• In November, the NHL's general managers passed a rule change, allowing teams to wear colored helmets with their white away jerseys, as long as they were not the same color as their opponents' helmets. The official rule change came as the Hurricanes opened the season wearing red helmets with their white jerseys. The idea behind the rule change is actually to make it easier for teams to fulfill their helmet sponsorship obligations, particularly teams which have different sponsors for home and road games.

• Prior to the 2023-24 season, only three players had ever hit the 100-assist plateau: Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky (eight times) and Mario Lemieux. The list nearly doubled in a single season, as Edmonton's Connor McDavid and Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov hit the century mark in assists.

• Following years of instability, the Arizona Coyotes' franchise was deactivated immediately upon the conclusion of the regular season. After two seasons at the sub-NHL standard Mullett Arena without as much as a plot of land secured for a new arena, the NHL established an expansion team in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the Coyotes' players and personnel moving to the new franchise for the 2024-25 season. The Coyotes name, logo, colors and history will remain in Arizona and will not transfer to Utah. Under the agreement, the Coyotes franchise will be reactivated if owner Alex Meruelo can get a new arena built within five years.

• Two long playoff droughts were extended: The Buffalo Sabres missed the playoffs for an NHL record-extending 13th season in a row, and the Detroit Red Wings enjoyed the playoffs from the comforts of their own living rooms for the eighth straight season.