1979 NHL expansion

The 1979 NHL expansion, popularly referred to as the NHL–WHA merger, was the culmination of several years of negotiations between the National Hockey League (NHL) and the World Hockey Association (WHA). The negotiations led to the dissolution of the WHA, with four of its six surviving teams – the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets – entering the NHL as expansion teams for the 1979–80 season. The agreement officially took effect on June 22; it ended the seven-year existence of the WHA and re-established the NHL as the sole major league in North American professional ice hockey.

The two leagues had discussed the possibility of some sort of amalgamation for numerous years, despite the acrimonious relationship between the two after the WHA aggressively recruited NHL players upon the former's founding in 1971. The two sides came close to an agreement in 1977, but the proposed merger was defeated by a group of hard-line NHL owners. The NHL also initially rejected the 1979 expansion agreement by one vote earlier in March 1979; however, a massive boycott of Molson products in Canada led the Montreal Canadiens, who were owned by Molson, to reverse their position and call for a second vote on expansion. That second vote saw the agreement ratified after the Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks dropped their opposition.

Although popularly called a merger, the NHL did not and does not recognize the WHA's records or history as being any part of its own. It explicitly treated the arrival of the WHA teams not as a merger, but rather as an expansion consisting of four new franchises which happened to have identical or similar names to some of the former WHA teams. Notably, and in stark contrast to amalgamations consummated within the preceding decade in American football and basketball, the existing NHL teams were allowed to reclaim players to which they held NHL "rights" from the former WHA clubs without compensation, with the caveat being that each of the new NHL franchises were permitted to protect two goaltenders and two skaters on their WHA rosters in the process.

An expansion draft was held to help stock up the WHA refugees' NHL rosters. The expansion teams were also placed at the end of the draft order for the 1979 NHL entry draft, as opposed to typical expansion drafts in North American sports leagues, which usually place the expansion teams either at or very near the front of the draft order.