Four most disappointing NHL teams of the season so far

We are a quarter of the way through the 2024-25 NHL season, and some teams across the league have been pretty significant disappointments that have failed to meet expectations. 

Let’s talk about four of them. 

Nashville Predators

The Predators entered the season with sky-high expectations after a busy offseason that saw them add two 40-goal scorers (Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault) and a top-four defenseman (Brady Skjei) to a roster that made the playoffs a year ago. A return to the playoffs should have been the bare-minimum expectation. Winning a round or two should have been reasonable. Competing for the Stanley Cup was not out of the question.

Just 22 games into their season, they have the second-worst record in the league (.386 points percentage, just marginally ahead of the Chicago Blackhawks) and can’t seem to do anything right. They are 30th in goals per game, 21st in goals against per game and their two biggest additions (Stamkos and Marchessault) have combined for just 11 goals. 

The worst sign of all is that they are losing despite getting really strong goaltending from Juuse Saros, who is having a big bounce-back year. 

Pittsburgh Penguins

After two straight non-playoff seasons, no postseason series wins since the 2018 season and with an aging core, there should not have been overly high expectations for the Penguins this season. 

They are still failing to meet them.

Not only are the Penguins on their way to a third-straight non-playoff season, they have been one of the worst teams in the league and have the worst record in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. Entering play on Tuesday their 91 goals against and 3.96 goals against per game were both the worst in the NHL, while they have developed a crushing habit of consistently blowing multiple-goal leads. They do not defend well, they have some of the league’s worst goaltending (28th in save percentage) and outside of captain Sidney Crosby and the occasional brilliance from Evgeni Malkin, there is simply not much here to get excited about. 

They were not supposed to be good. They were not supposed to be this bad. 

Boston Bruins

The Bruins have been seemingly overdue for a decline at some point, and it finally looks like it is here. 

At the first quarter point of the season the Bruins find themselves on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, already fired their head coach (Jim Montgomery) and still have a lot of the same flaws that have existed for the past couple of years (specifically the lack of a true No. 1 center). They spent big money in free agency on forward Elias Lindholm and defenseman Nikita Zadorov, and both have been underwhelming. Starting goalie Jeremy Swayman has also been off to a slow start after signing a massive eight-year, $66 million contract extension. 

After being one of the NHL’s best teams the past two seasons, this is a sudden regression.

Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers were one game away from winning the Stanley Cup in 2024, have two of the best players in hockey in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and also have one of the league’s best defensive pairings in Evan Bouchard and Mattias Ekholm. 

The problem? They have almost nothing after those four players. 

At least nothing that is playing well this season. Only three forwards on the roster (McDavid, Draisaitl and Mattias Janmark) have at least 10 points this season, while their goaltending with Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard is only 27th in the league in save percentage.

No depth, no goaltending and a team that is reliant on just a handful of players is not going to go far.