2012–13 NHL season
sports season

The 2012–13 NHL season was the 96th season of operation (95th season of play) of the National Hockey League (NHL). The regular season began on January 19, 2013, and ended on April 28, 2013, with the playoffs to follow until June. The Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Boston Bruins in six games to win the Stanley Cup.
The season start was delayed from its original October 11, 2012, date due to a lockout imposed by the NHL franchise owners after the expiration of the league's collective bargaining agreement (CBA). After a new labour agreement was reached between the owners and the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA), training camps opened on January 13, 2013, and a 48-game season (reduced from 82 games) started on January 19. Similar to the 1994–95 season, the shortened regular season was limited to intra-conference competition.
League business
Entry draft
The 2012 NHL entry draft was held on June 22–23, 2012, at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh. Nail Yakupov was selected first overall by the Edmonton Oilers.
Lockout
On September 13, 2012, all 29 league ownership groups (with the Phoenix Coyotes collectively owned by the NHL) authorized commissioner Gary Bettman to lock out the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) upon the expiration of the NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) on September 15. The action marked the fifth labour dispute in twenty years for the league, following a 1992 strike, lockouts in 1994–95 and 2004–05, as well as a referees lockout in 1993; this is more than any of the other major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada during this period.
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This entry incorporates text from “2012–13 NHL season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.