Philadelphia Quakers The Philadelphia Quakers were a professional ice hockey team that played only one full season in the National Hockey League ( NHL ) , 1930 - 31 , at the Philadelphia Arena in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . They were the successors of the Pittsburgh Pirates . History . The Pirates , the third American - based NHL team , got off to a promising start in 1925 - 26 , making the playoffs in two of their first three seasons . However , the team soon fell on hard times both on the ice and at the box office . A sale to bootlegger Bill Dwyer didn ' t help the cause . With the stock market crash of 1929 followed by the Great Depression , the owners found themselves having to sell off their star players to make ends meet . By the end of the 1929 - 30 season , the team was $ 400 , 000 in debt , and their arena , the Duquesne Gardens , was not suitable for an NHL team . Boxing promoter Benny Leonard , Dwyer ' s front man , then requested permission to temporarily move to Philadelphia as the Quakers ( from the historical importance of the Quaker religious community in the founding of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania ) until a new arena was built in Pittsburgh . Things got no better on the other side of Pennsylvania . The financial woes continued unabated . On the ice , the Quakers were the definition of futility . It took the team three games to score its first goal and six games to get its first win , which came on November 30th , a 2 - 1 win over the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs . They finished with a horrendous 4 - 36 - 4 record . The . 136 winning percentage was the lowest in NHL history , a record that would stand for 45 years until the Washington Capitals finished with a . 131 winning percentage in 1974 - 75 . The four wins tied the 1919 - 20 Quebec Bulldogs for the fewest wins in NHL history for a team that played a full season . They had the worst offense ( 76 goals for ) and worst defense ( 184 goals against ) in the league . At the end of that season ( 1930 - 31 ) , the Quakers , along with the Ottawa Senators , announced that they would not field a team for the 1931 - 32 NHL season , leaving Philadelphia without an NHL team until the arrival of the Flyers in 1967 . While the Senators came back for 2 years before moving to St . Louis , the Quakers franchise never iced a team again . At each of the next five season - opening NHL governors meetings , they announced that they were suspending operations for the season . They finally gave up the ghost and officially canceled the franchise when the new arena in Pittsburgh failed to materialize on May 7 , 1936 . That new arena , the Civic Arena ( now Mellon Arena ) would not be built until 1961 , and the NHL would not return to Pittsburgh until the arrival of the Penguins in 1967 . Syd Howe was the last active Quakers player , playing his last NHL game in 1946 . Recent Remembrance . The AHL Philadelphia Phantoms honored the Philadelphia Quakers hockey club on January 26 , 2007 during their home game against the Wilkes - Barre / Scranton Penguins . They wore replica jerseys patterned after the originals worn by the Quakers in the early ' 30s . After the game , the jerseys were auctioned off with a portion of the proceeds going to Phantoms Charities . Season - by - season record . " Note : GP = Games played , W = Wins , L = Losses , T = Ties , OTL = Overtime losses , Pts = Points , GF = Goals for , GA = Goals against , PIM = Penalties in minutes "