quality:corruption
Club participation

NHL teams have occasionally participated in international club competitions. Most of these competitions were arranged by the NHL or NHLPA. The first international club competition was held in 1976, with eight NHL teams playing against the Soviet Championship League 's HC CSKA Moscow, and Krylya Sovetov Moscow. Between 1976 and 1991, the NHL, and the Soviet Championship League would hold several exhibition games between the two leagues known as the Super Series. No NHL club had played a Soviet or Russian-based club from the end of the Super Series in 1991 to 2008 when the New York Rangers faced Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the 2008 Victoria Cup.

In addition to the Russian clubs, NHL clubs had participated in several international club exhibitions and competitions with various European-based clubs. The first exhibition game to feature an NHL team against a European-based team (aside from clubs based in the former Soviet Union) was in December 1977, when the New York Rangers faced Poldi Kladno of the Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League. In the 2000s, the NHL organized four NHL Challenge series between NHL and European clubs. The NHL continued to organize exhibition games between NHL and European teams before the beginning of the NHL season; those games were known as the NHL Premiere from 2007 to 2011 and as the NHL Global Series since 2017. The last exhibition game between an NHL and European club occurred during the 2022 NHL Global Series.

NHL clubs have also participated in IIHF-organized club tournaments. The most recent IIHF-organized event including an NHL club was the 2009 Victoria Cup, between the Swiss National League A 's ZSC Lions and the Chicago Blackhawks.