Which NHL team moved from Hartford to North Carolina in 1997?

The NHL team that moved from Hartford to North Carolina in 1997 was the Carolina Hurricanes.

The franchise had played in Hartford as the Hartford Whalers, one of the former World Hockey Association clubs that entered the NHL in 1979. Owner Peter Karmanos announced in March 1997 that the team would leave Connecticut after negotiations over a new Hartford arena failed.

The club moved to the Research Triangle region of North Carolina and was renamed the Carolina Hurricanes. Because its planned Raleigh arena was not yet finished, the team temporarily played home games at Greensboro Coliseum during its first two North Carolina seasons.

The move is sometimes simplified as a direct Hartford-to-Raleigh transition, but the team initially represented the wider Carolina region and played in Greensboro. The Hurricanes opened the new Raleigh arena in 1999 and later won their first Stanley Cup in 2006.