What NHL team represents the city with the smallest population, and does Anchorage, Alaska have a bigger population than this city?

The New York Islanders officially represent Uniondale, New York, which has a population of 23,011 (in 2000).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniondale,_New_York

This is much smaller than Anchorage, with a population of 279,671 in 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorage,_Alaska

If the New York solution feels somewhat like cheating with a strict definition, the Florida Panthers play out of Sunrise, Florida, which has a population of 90,220.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise,_Florida

For a complete list of the 30 teams with their cities, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Hockey_League

Among current teams and populations, for those teams using a city name (rather than a state or region), the Buffalo Sabres (72nd largest at 261,025) qualify as representing a city smaller than Anchorage (65th largest at 295,570), and would be the smallest overall, with Pittsburgh (61st largest at 307,484) the second-smallest NHL city.
-see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

All 7 of the Canadian NHL cities have populations over 600,000.
-see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_municipalities_in_Canada_by_population

Some teams have played in smaller suburban centres near the city they are named after (e.g. the Phoenix Coyotes now play in Glendale, Arizona), and several teams play in smaller cities but represent states (St. Paul, Minnesota [Wild] is 66th largest at 288,448; Newark, New Jersey [Devils] is 68th at 277,540; Sunrise, Florida [Panthers] is below being ranked at 84,439; Uniondale, New York [Islanders] is below being ranked at 24,759- although Uniondale is an unincorporated hamlet of Hempstead, population 759,757). These (and others like Buffalo and Pittsburgh) clearly all rely on much larger metropolitan populations to support them, and this question asked about the "city represented."