1920–21 NHL season

The 1920–21 NHL season was the fourth season of the National Hockey League (NHL). Four teams each played 24 games in a split season. The NHL's Ottawa Senators won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association three games to two in a best-of-five series. This would be the last split season before the NHL changed its regular season and playoff formats.

League Business

Eddie Livingstone was again talking of creating a rival league and mentioned Hamiltonas a city in his league. To head this off, league president Frank Calder got the owners of the league to admit a Hamilton franchise. As Abso-Pure had built an arena, all owners agreed that it would be wise tohave a franchise in Hamilton. Because Quebec had done so badly the previous season, Calder said that Quebec's players would be given to Hamilton. Although Mike Quinn was non-committal at first, he finally sold the team to Hamilton and it became the Hamilton Tigers.

Regular season

The Tigers had some trouble signing Joe Malone from the Quebec days, but he finally did sign.

The Tigers stung the Canadiens 5–0 in its first game with Babe Dye starring. The Toronto St. Patricks lost Corbett Denneny to injuries and recalled Dye from Hamilton, giving them Mickey Roach in his place.

Corbett Denneny scored six goals in a game January 26th as the Toronto St. Patrickswalloped the Hamilton Tigers 10–3.

Cy Denneny wasn't about to let his brother steal the thunder and he scored six goalshimself in a March 7th game as the Ottawa Senators hammered the Hamilton Tigers 12–5.For the first time, a brother combination had scored six goals in a game the same season.

The Ottawa Senators won the first half of the split season while the Toronto St. Patricks won the second half.

Final standings

"Note: W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, GF= Goals For, GA = Goals Against, Pts = Points"
"Note: Teams that qualified for playoffs highlighted in bold"

Leading goaltenders

"GP = Games Played, GA = Goals Against, SO = Shutouts, GAA = Goals Against Average""Ottawa wins best-of-five series 3 games to 2 for the Stanley Cup"

NHL Playoff scoring leader

"Note: GP = Games played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points"

NHL awards

* O'Brien Cup — Ottawa Senators

Debuts

The following is a list of players of note who played their first NHL game in 1920–21 (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 1920–21 (listed with their last team):

See also

* List of Stanley Cup champions
* Pacific Coast Hockey Association
* Ice hockey at the 1920 Summer Olympics
* List of pre-NHL seasons
* 1920 in sports
* 1921 in sports

References

* [http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/nhl1927.html Hockey Database]
* [http://nhl.com/ NHL.com]