by the 1940s, they were playing 50 games a year, but this increased slowly to 80 games by the 1970s. in 1967, the league increased to 12 teams. by 1979 it had 21 teams, and today it has 32. some of the teams that no longer exist are the oakland seals, minnesota north stars (now the dallas stars), winnipeg jets (now the arizona coyotes), kansas city scouts (which became the colorado rockies and are now the new jersey devils), hartford whalers (now the carolina hurricanes), quebec nordiques (now the colorado avalanche) and atlanta thrashers (now the current winnipeg jets).