In the 1967-1968 season the NHL expanded from its long-time base of six teams (that is commonly referred to as the Original 6 era) to twelve teams. Minnesota was a well-known hockey hotbed and was a natural site for a franchise. The Minnesota North Stars played their home games in the new Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. Behind a skilled management team, the North Stars had respectable success in the early years, prospering behind goaltending duo Lorne "Gump" Worsley and Cesare Maniago. Defenseman Ted Harris was the North Stars captain. The first Stars team also included high-scoring winger Bill Goldsworthy and other quality players such as Barry Gibbs, Jude Drouin, J.P. Parise, Danny Grant and Dennis Hextall.

Early in their first season the North Stars suffered a terrible tragedy. On January 13, 1968, forward Bill Masterton suffered a fatal injury during a game against the Oakland Seals. After getting hit by Seals forward Ron Harris, Masterton (who was not wearing a helmet) fell backwards, hitting the back of his head on the ice. He never regained consciousness and died on January 15, 1968, at the age of 30, two days after the accident. To date, this remains the first and only death in NHL history resulting from an on-ice injury. The North Stars retired his jersey, and later that year hockey writers established the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy which would be given annually to a player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverence, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.

By the mid-Seventies, with Worsley and Harris retired, the North Stars had fallen on hard times, perennially attaining poor records and usually finishing out of the playoffs. However, in 1978 the struggling team was bought by the owners of the NHL Cleveland Barons, who were permitted to merge the two teams in an unprecedented arrangement. A few skilled players -- notably goaltender Gilles Meloche and forwards Al MacAdam and Mike Fidler -- bolstered the Minnesota lineup. Furthermore, Minnesota had drafted Bobby Smith who would go on to win the Calder Trophy that year. With the additions of fine new players such as Minnesota native and ex-1980 Olympian Neal Broten and sniper Dino Ciccarelli, the North Stars had five straight winning seasons starting in 1979-1980 and reached the Stanley Cup finals in 1980-81.

Thereafter, success would elude the North Stars. After 1984 the franchise would only have one more winning season in Minnesota before the move to Dallas. While the Nineties saw the franchise draft what would turn out to be their greatest player -- forward Mike Modano -- chronic attendance problems spurred the owners to threaten to move the club to the San Francisco area which went against the league's wishes.
A compromise was implemented for the 1990-1991 season whereby the Barons-North Stars merger would be dissolved, and the then-current owners would receive players via a dispersal draft for the expansion San Jose Sharks). A new ownership team took over in Minnesota led by a man who would become notorious in the annals of Minnesota hockey, Canadian shopping mall developer Norman Green.

In that 1991 season, despite a losing record in the regular season, the North Stars made it to the Stanley Cup finals. They knocked off the arch-rival Chicago Blackhawks in six games, the St. Louis Blues in five games and the defending Stanley Cup Champion Edmonton Oilers in five games. The team fought hard against the eventual champion Pittsburgh Penguins led by Mario Lemieux. They won two out of the first three contests before being obliterated 8-0 in Game 6 of the best-of-seven series. It was the most one-sided defeat in a deciding game of the Stanley Cup Finals since the Ottawa Silver Seven defeated the Dawson City Nuggets 23-2 in 1905.

The shocking loss seemed to let the air out of the franchise for good. Owner Green's mercurial personality and mounting financial and legal problems also began to grate on the area's fan base. Local support for the franchise rapidly dwindled. Finally, with his northern mall empire threatening to fall into receivership and a sexual harassment lawsuit against him working its way through the Minnesota court system, Green demanded concessions for his team that the area and state were unwilling to give, so he moved the team to Dallas, Texas, in the fall of 1993.