The 1972/73 NHL season was the 56th season in the National Hockey League . 16 teams played 78 games each. The Stanley Cup won the Montréal Canadiens after a 4-2 win in the final series against the Chicago Black Hawks . While the Chicago Black Hawks had always been around 20 points ahead in the past two years, this year it fell to eight points. Philadelphia and Minnesota had caught up.
More than 30 years ago, two teams from the same city played in the NHL for the last time and, like then, it was New York again , which now had a second team with the New York Islanders . The Southeast should now also participate in the NHL. The Atlanta Flames competed in the state of Georgia . At first only laughed at, the WHA started its first season this season as the second professional ice hockey league. 6 of the 12 teams played in NHL cities. After a few NHL stars like Bobby Hull , Gerry Cheevers , Bernie Parent and Derek Sanderson joined the new league, the laughter stopped. Before the season had started, there had been a memorable eight-game series between Canada and the USSR . Although Bobby Orr was absent due to an injury and the players who had switched to the WHA had been excluded, Canada won the series.