Which NHL teams played the league’s first regular-season game outside North America?

The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Vancouver Canucks played the NHL’s first regular-season game outside North America.

They met in Tokyo, Japan, on October 3, 1997, opening the 1997–98 NHL season. The Canucks won 3–2 in overtime. The game was part of the NHL’s effort to expand its international profile and demonstrate that regular-season contests could be staged beyond Canada and the United States.

The teams were known officially as the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Vancouver Canucks at the time. Anaheim later shortened its name to the Anaheim Ducks. Because of that later rebranding, modern summaries sometimes call the matchup the Ducks versus the Canucks, but the original historical team name was Mighty Ducks.

The NHL had previously played exhibition games internationally, including contests in Europe and elsewhere. Tokyo 1997 was different because it counted in the regular-season standings. Later international openers were held in countries including Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.