1994–95 NHL season

Did You Know?

• The Boston Bruins played their final season at the Boston Garden before moving to the FleetCenter.
• The Chicago BlackHawks moved from Chicago Stadium to the United Center.
• The St. Louis Blues moved from St. Louis Arena to the Kiel Center.

League business

The 1994 NHL entry draft was held on June 28–29, 1994, at the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut, with Ed Jovanovski selected first overall by the Florida Panthers. On October 1, 1994, the NHL initiated a lockout of the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA). Players had begun training camps weeks earlier, but as camps closed, labor negotiations remained unresolved. The central issue was the implementation of a salary cap, strongly favored by owners and opposed by players.

The NHL proposed a luxury tax on salaries above the average, which the NHLPA viewed as a variation on a salary cap and refused. This lockout followed the 1992 player walkout that interrupted the Stanley Cup race, but unlike that strike, the owners were determined to secure the right deal. Under executive director Bob Goodenow, the NHLPA indicated openness to a small tax but argued that financial goals could be met through revenue sharing. As the lockout continued, talk of a salary cap faded, and new issues emerged: a rookie salary cap, changes to the arbitration system, and loosened free agency.

Regular season

The 1994–95 NHL season began on January 20 after a lockout delay. The regular season was cut from 84 games to 48, with all games played within each conference. It ended on May 3, marking the first time the league played into that month. A March 10 game between the Detroit Red Wings and San Jose Sharks was postponed because Guadalupe River flooding blocked travel to the San Jose Arena. For the first time since 1969–70, the Montreal Canadiens did not qualify for the playoffs.

Playoffs

The playoffs included the eight best teams from each conference. The two division winners were seeded first and second based on their regular-season records, and the other six teams were seeded third through eighth. Every round was a best-of-seven series. Instead of a fixed bracket, the league used re-seeding for the first three rounds. In each conference, the highest remaining seed played the lowest remaining seed, the second-highest faced the second-lowest, and so on. The higher seed received home-ice advantage. The two conference winners then met in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Broadcasting

For the 1994–95 season, Canadian national TV rights remained split between TSN and Hockey Night in Canada on CBC, now in their seventh year together. HNIC expanded its Saturday night schedule to include doubleheaders every week for the first time. TSN kept its regular season weeknight games, mostly on Mondays and Thursdays. The Stanley Cup playoffs were primarily on CBC, with TSN covering first-round series that involved only U.S. teams.

In the United States, the NHL began a five-year deal with Fox and ESPN, marking the league’s first major broadcast network agreement since 1974–75. ESPN’s existing contract was restructured when Fox took over the games previously brokered to ABC. Fox broadcast the All-Star Game and regional Sunday afternoon games during the last five weeks of the regular season, while ESPN and ESPN2 handled weeknight coverage. For the playoffs, all Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals games were exclusive to Fox or ESPN for the first time.

American regional sports networks could still show their teams’ first- and second-round games but could no longer air local coverage beyond those rounds. During the first two rounds, ESPN and ESPN2 selected games, and Fox aired regional Sunday afternoon telecasts. Fox’s Sunday broadcasts continued into the Conference Finals, with ESPN carrying the remaining games. The Stanley Cup Finals were split between Fox and ESPN.