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In Canada, there was widespread outrage over the denial of an expansion team to Vancouver in 1967. Three years later, the NHL added a third Canadian team when the Vancouver Canucks, formerly of the Western Hockey League, were admitted as an expansion team for the 1970–71 season, along with the Buffalo Sabres, another team whose owners had bid unsuccessfully for an expansion team in 1967. The Canucks were placed in the East Division, despite being on the west coast, while the Chicago Black Hawks were shifted to the West in an attempt to equalize the divisions' strength.

Vancouver became home to a professional ice hockey team for the first time in 1911 when Patrick brothers Frank and Lester established the Vancouver Millionaires, one of three teams in the new Pacific Coast Hockey Association. To accommodate the Millionaires, the Patrick brothers directed the building of the Denman Arena, which was known at the time as the world's largest artificial ice rink (it burned down in 1936). The Millionaires played for the Stanley Cup five times, winning over the Ottawa Senators in 1915 on home ice. It marked the first time the Stanley Cup was won by a west coast team in the trophy's history.

After the Millionaires disbanded following the 1925–26 season, Vancouver was home to only minor league teams for many years. Most notably, the present-day Canucks' minor league predecessor (also known as the Vancouver Canucks), played from 1945 to 1970 in the Pacific Coast Hockey League and Western Hockey League.

With the intention of attracting an NHL franchise, Vancouver began the construction of a new modern arena, the Pacific Coliseum, in 1967. The WHL's Canucks were playing in a small indoor arena at the time, the Vancouver Forum, situated on the same Pacific National Exhibition grounds as the Coliseum. Meanwhile, a Vancouver group led by WHL Canucks owner and former Vancouver mayor Fred Hume made a bid to be one of the six teams due to join the league in 1967, but the NHL rejected their application. Bid leader Cyril McLean called the denial a "cooked-up deal", referring to several biases that factored against them. Speculation long abounded afterwards that the bid was hindered by Toronto Maple Leafs president Stafford Smythe; after a failed Vancouver-based business deal, he was quoted as saying that the city would not get a NHL franchise in his lifetime. Additionally, along with the Montreal Canadiens, Smythe purportedly did not wish to split Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) hockey revenues three ways rather than two. There were reports at the time, however, that the group had made a very weak proposal in expectation that Vancouver was a lock for one of the new franchises.

Less than a year later, the Oakland Seals were in financial difficulty and having trouble drawing fans. An apparent deal was in place to move the team to Vancouver, but the NHL did not want to see one of their franchises from the expansion of 1967 move so quickly and killed the deal. In exchange for avoiding a lawsuit, the NHL promised Vancouver would get a team in the next expansion. Another group, headed by Minnesota entrepreneur Tom Scallen, made a new presentation, and was awarded an expansion franchise for the price of $6 million dollars (three times the cost in 1967). The new ownership group purchased the WHL Canucks, and joined the league along with the Buffalo Sabres for the 1970–71 season.

Buffalo had a history of professional hockey. The Buffalo Bisons were one of the pillars of the American Hockey League (AHL), winning the Calder Cup in their final season. The Knoxes tried twice before to get an NHL team, first when the NHL expanded in 1967, and again when they attempted to buy the Oakland Seals with the intent of moving them to Buffalo. At the time of their creation, the Sabres exercised their option to create their own AHL farm team, the Cincinnati Swords. Former Toronto Maple Leafs general manager and head coach Punch Imlach was hired in the same capacity with the Sabres.

The consensus was that first pick in the 1970 NHL Amateur Draft would be junior phenom Gilbert Perreault. Either the Sabres or the Canucks would get the first pick, to be determined with the spin of a roulette wheel. Perreault was available to the Sabres and Canucks as this was the first year that the Montreal Canadiens did not have a priority right to draft Quebec-born junior players.