1969–70 NHL season

The 1969–70 NHL season was the 53rd season of the National Hockey League. For the third straight season, the St. Louis Blues reached the Stanley Cup Finals, and for the third straight year, the winners of the expansion West Division were swept four games to none. This time, however, it was at the hands of the Boston Bruins, as the defending champions Montreal Canadiens narrowly missed the playoffs, something that did not happen again for the next quarter century. With both the Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs missing the 1970 Stanley Cup playoffs, it was the first time in league history that no Canadian team in the NHL (two Canadian teams at the time) qualified for the playoffs (something that has happened only once since, in 2016, when all seven NHL's Canadian teams missed the playoffs). It was also the final season that teams wore their colored jerseys at home until the 2003–04 season.