League National Hockey League Season champions Boston Bruins Champion New York Islanders Number of games 80 Number of teams 21 | Sport Ice hockey Champions New York Islanders Start date 1982 Top scorer Wayne Gretzky Season MVP Wayne Gretzky | |
Duration October 5, 1982 – May 17, 1983 Playoffs Playoffs MVP Billy Smith, (NY Islanders) Similar 1980–81 NHL season, 1991–92 NHL season, 1979–80 NHL season, 1985–86 NHL season | ||
The 1982–83 NHL season was the 66th season of the National Hockey League. The New York Islanders won their fourth Stanley Cup in a row with their second consecutive finals sweep by beating the Edmonton Oilers four games to none. No team in any major professional North American sport has won four consecutive championships since.
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League business
Prior the start of the season, the Colorado Rockies moved to East Rutherford, New Jersey where they were renamed New Jersey Devils. They were also moved to the Patrick Division, forcing a reluctant Winnipeg Jets to leave the Norris Division and take Colorado's place in the Smythe Division. These would be the last relocations of an NHL team until 1993. After the season, a last-minute sale of the St. Louis Blues to Harry Ornest prevented Wild Bill Hunter from purchasing that team and moving it to Saskatoon.
The Calgary Flames played their final season at the 7,000-plus seat Stampede Corral before moving into the Olympic Saddledome, which had a capacity of 16,605.
At the end of the season, the long pants worn by the Philadelphia Flyers and Hartford Whalers are banned, due to player safety concerns.
Regular season
The last remaining players from the Original Six era (prior to the Expansion Era)–Carol Vadnais, Serge Savard and Wayne Cashman–all retired after this season. Cashman was the last to play, losing in the Wales Conference Finals as a member of the Bruins.
The Boston Bruins led the league in overall points with 110. The defending Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders fell from first overall and finished tied for 6th overall and the high-powered, high offence, Edmonton Oilers tied for second overall. The Oilers set a new record, which they had just set the previous year, for most goals in a season with 424 and were led by Wayne Gretzky's 196 points. The Oilers also tied the Boston Bruins' 1970–71 record for most 100-point players in one season as Wayne Gretzky, Glenn Anderson, Jari Kurri, and Mark Messier all scored more than 100 points.
The Washington Capitals qualified for the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
Playoffs
The 1983 Playoffs marked the first time that 7 NHL teams based in Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Quebec, Winnipeg, and Calgary) had qualified. Since the 1967–1968 expansion, all the Canadian teams qualified for the playoffs on five other occasions – 1969 (Montreal and Toronto), 1975, 1976 and 1979 (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver), and 1986 (the same seven as in 1983), the last time to date (as of 2016) that all active Canadian teams qualified.
All-Star teams
Source: NHL.
Scoring leaders
Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points
Source: NHL.
Leading goaltenders
Note: GP = Games played; Min = Minutes Played; GA = Goals Against; GAA = Goals Against Average; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; SO = Shutouts
Debuts
The following is a list of players of note who played their first NHL game in 1982–83 (listed with their first team, asterisk(*) marks debut in playoffs):
Last games
The following is a list of players of note that played their last game in the NHL in 1982–83 (listed with their last team):
1983 trade deadline
Trade deadline: March 8, 1983.