7 Disappointing NHL Teams from the 2024-25 Season

The Stanley Cup playoffs are nearly here and the post-mortems for teams that didn't make it are definitely here.

We know there are still a few more games left to be played before the playoffs start this weekend, but it's (almost) all over bar the crying unless you're a fan of the Canadiens, Blue Jackets, Wild, Blues, or Flames. But for everyone else that's not going to have fun in the postseason, it's a huge bummer at the least and a supreme disappointment for others.

It's the latter category we're locked in on today. Those teams who had the highest hopes, the biggest of dreams and aims on a Stanley Cup run, only to be wondering how lucky they can get in the NHL draft lottery. Some teams had low expectations that failed even to meet those.

We will break down those teams that left their fans shaking their heads and pondering how their local baseball team is doing, or started poring over videos of the top prospects of the 2025 draft.

It's hard to go from being the Presidents' Trophy winners a year ago to being out of the playoffs the next, but the New York Rangers managed to be the fourth team to accomplish that and the first since the 2014-2015 Boston Bruins.

The Rangers' season was dramatic before it even began when they tried to deal captain Jacob Trouba in the offseason, only to see it fall apart and get out into the media.

Then they got off to a slow start, and GM Chris Drury reportedly said he'd trade anyone to improve things, including Trouba and Chris Kreider.

All of it backfired, and all of the deals they did make (adding J.T. Miller, for instance) weren't enough to pull the team out of a tailspin and establish a playoff spot.

They'll wind up on the outside looking in during a season when they were meant to be a high-end Cup contender. Now we wonder if coach Peter Laviolette will survive and if there are more deals to come in the summer to fix this messy situation.

For everyone who's had the Bruins "miss the playoffs" obituary in your drafts for the past few years, just waiting for their magic to wear off, this is your time to shine.

Two years ago, the Florida Panthers broke the Bruins when they roared back in their first-round playoff matchup and rode that momentum to the Stanley Cup Final. Boston won the Presidents' Trophy that season, and Patrice Bergeron retired following that series loss.

Even though they were able to upend the Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs last year, it was the Panthers again who knocked them out. Linus Ullmark got traded and Jeremy Swayman wasn't signed until the day before the season started.

Injuries wracked the Bruins; they traded captain Brad Marchand (to Florida) and they're buried at the bottom of the Atlantic Divisio in need of a long look in the mirror in the offseason.

Whether GM Don Sweeney survives to decide whether they'll rebuild on the fly or tear it all down remains to be seen, but Boston needs a new coach, better health and a lot more talent if they're going to get back in the hunt for the Stanley Cup.

It seems like a lifetime ago that the Canucks roared up the Pacific Division standings and into the playoffs only to be haunted by injuries and yet still made it to Game 7 of the second round against Edmonton.

But that was last season and, boy, what a difference a year has made.

Vancouver still had injuries (Thatcher Demko, Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson among them), and it also had a heaping dose of off-ice drama that found its way into the public eye. The issues they had with Pettersson and J.T. Miller led the president of hockey operations, Jim Rutherford, to say there was a chance both guys could've been moved even though he didn't want to do it.

All of that dragged the Canucks down and out of the playoff picture. That it happened a year after it seemed they had risen from the ashes to be one of the best in the league is disheartening to say the least and maddening to fans in B.C.

The Canucks have needs to address all over the lineup in the summer and you have to wonder if head coach Rick Tocchet will be back behind the bench, too.

We all joked around this summer about how the Predators won the offseason Stanley Cup with all the moves they made, adding Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Brady Skjei and Luke Schenn. It was a bold and fun way to handle free agency that we all supported

It's just extra disappointing that it didn't work out at all.

The Predators went from being a surprise playoff team a year ago to a stunningly bad team a year later that's going to have the third worst record in the league and a reasonable shot at landing their first-ever No. 1 overall pick.

The Preds had the worst shooting luck in the NHL (8.7 percent shooting) and No. 1 goalie Juuse Saros went from a .906 save percentage a year ago to .894 this season.

You could chalk all of it up to bad luck if you want and hope it turns around next season, or you could view it as a deeply worrying sign that things might get bad, fast.

The front-end talent is really good, especially with Filip Forsberg and Roman Josi there, but they need a talent injection in a big way to turn it around. And maybe a four-leaf clover or two.

The most optimistic someone could be about the moves Chicago made in the offseason was that maybe, if things went right, they could get into the race for a wild card.

After all, they added a load of veterans to help Connor Bedard and other young players grow into the NHL.

Instead, things went sideways quickly. While Ryan Donato had a great season scoring 30 goals, other veterans struggled and opposing teams knew they could swarm Bedard's line on most nights and skate away with two points.

It was rough and it was ugly at times, and the 'Hawks are back in the running for the No. 1 pick again with the San Jose Sharks.

A wise person once said, "You can't rush a rebuild," and while Chicago didn't entirely try to do that, the moves they made didn't work as intended and now there are big questions about the direction this rebuild is headed.

In truth, everyone should calm down and allow time to do most of the work, but impatience is harsh, and GM Kyle Davidson's time might run short because of that.

The number 9 in Detroit is sacred. It belonged to Gordie Howe, and until Steve Yzerman came along, he was the most revered figure in hockey in Motown.

That Yzerman is the GM at the helm of the team as it's just had its ninth straight season without playoffs helps make for a cruel irony.

For the past couple of years, the Red Wings had an extended period through the season when it seemed they'd figured it out and were about to roar back into the postseason, only to lose steam and collapse late in the year.

That the Wings are going through this while the Lions, Tigers and Pistons are each having their renaissances in their sports harshens the spotlight on what they're doing wrong.

Every move that hasn't panned out gets fans more agitated at Yzerman and that's something no one thought could happen. A playoff drought that pushes a decade (or more if you're Buffalo) can make all things possible.

It's hard to imagine what captain Sidney Crosby is going through hin is mind after being part of another Penguins season out of the playoffs.

It's got to be hard for the 37-year-old to continue being as consistently great as he is and, at his age, be the best player on the team and do everything in his power to help them win, only to see it end up not being enough.

All of that goes on while GM Kyle Dubas tries to clean up and rearrange the team after the way Jim Rutherford and then Ron Hextall and Brian Burke ran it.

The Penguins have lacked picks to spark a rebuild, and their prospect coffers were emptied to try to keep a Stanley Cup dream alive, all while the playoff hopes vanished year after year.

It's Crosby's team until he retires, but you have to wonder if he will get one more crack at the playoffs before that happens.