| Formerly | Smythe Division |
|---|---|
| Conference | Western Conference |
| League | National Hockey League |
| Sport | Ice hockey |
| Founded | 1993 Suspended in 2020–21 2021 (reactivated) |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Most recent champion(s) | Vancouver Canucks (1st title) |
| Most titles | Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks (6 titles each) |
The National Hockey League's Pacific Division was formed in 1993 as part of the Western Conference in a league realignment. It is also one of the two successors of the Smythe Division (the other one was the Northwest Division), though of the current teams, only the Anaheim Ducks, Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights did not play in the Smythe Division. Due to subsequent realignments, three of the Pacific Division's original teams (the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Vancouver Canucks) left the division in 1998 but returned in 2013. The division is the only one in the NHL without any Original Six teams. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting closure of the Canada–United States border, all eight teams were transferred into two different divisions for the 2020–21 NHL season. The American-based teams were moved to the West Division, while the Canadian-based teams were placed into the North Division.
With the addition of the expansion Seattle Kraken to the division in the 2021–22 NHL season and the NHL becoming a 32 team league, the Coyotes were moved to the Central Division to balance out the divisional alignment of eight teams per division.[1]
- ^ Kaplan, Emily (December 4, 2018). "Seattle gets NHL expansion team, to debut in 2021-22 season". ESPN.com. Retrieved December 12, 2018.