The biggest disappointment on every NHL team

Everything has been a struggle for the Anaheim Ducks this season, from major injuries, to the coaching situation, to the flawed roster. All of it added up together has resulted in a bitterly disappointing season that has left them near the bottom of the Western Conference standings, even after a strong start that was almost entirely due to the play of their goalies, John Gibson and Ryan Miller. One of the bigger disappointments up front has probably been the production of Rickard Rakell. Coming off of back-to-back 30-goal seasons that made him one of the league's most underrated goal-scorers, his production has fallen off substantially this season at a time when the Ducks needed him to be better than ever. He is still a great player with an outstanding future in the league, but this has been a tough year for him and the Ducks. 

Antti Raanta has been the victim of bad luck, and that is the disappointing thing. After years of being a backup in Chicago and New York, Raanta finally got a chance to be a starter with the Arizona Coyotes a year ago and was absolutely sensational when he played. The Coyotes were a different team with him in the lineup and looked like they might even be able to be a surprise playoff contender if he could stay healthy this season and play at that level all year. Unfortunately, he has not been able to stay healthy and will miss all by 12 games this season. He has a chance to be a difference-maker for the Coyotes, but he has not been able to stay on the ice. 

Given his age and the style of game he plays there was always a risk for the Bruins in signing David Backes for five years and $30 million and this season they are starting to see why. After some steady decline over the past few years, everything has plummeted for him this season with just five goals and nine assists through 49 games. Maybe this isn't a disappointment if you were critical of the signing when it originally happened, but if the Bruins were expecting this they almost certainly wouldn't have been confident enough to give him such a deal. 

When the Buffalo Sabres traded Ryan O'Reilly to the St. Louis Blues over the offseason they went for a return of quantity over quality. Tage Thompson was probably the best long-term asset they received, and so far he really has not stood out as anything more than just a decent prospect. That is a problem for the Sabres. Vladimir Sobotka and Patrik Berglund were never going to be anything more than short-term roster-filler, and the draft picks are going to be maybe 50-50 shots to even produce an NHLer, let alone a good one. That puts a lot of pressure on Thompson to make the trade worth it, and so far that has not yet happened. He has flashed some potential for sure, but the production is not yet there. 

When the Calgary Flames acquired Mike Smith before the 2017-18 season they probably did not anticipate him losing playing time to David Rittich less than two years later. But that is kind of what has happened this season as Smith's play has deteriorated to the point where Rittich had an opportunity to step in and seize the job. Fortunately for the Flames he has been up to the task because they probably would not be in the position they are in in the standings without him. 

After the season he had a year ago in Calgary I feel like more was expected out of him arriving in Carolina. Make no mistake: He has been good. His possession numbers are still among the best in the league, he is still a top-pairing defender, but the production has slipped a bit and he is probably not going to match what he did a year ago. Still think this is going to work out in Carolina, but he  may have been victim of some unreachable expectations based on what he did a year ago. 

He didn't cost them much, but the Chicago Blackhawks were obviously hoping to squeeze something out of Chris Kunitz as a veteran addition to their lineup. A four-time Stanley Cup champion that had scored 13 goals and recorded 29 points for the Tampa Bay Lightning a year ago, he has tallied just a single goal and three assists in his first 36 games this season. 

Not even one year ago Philipp Grubauer entered the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the Game 1 starting goalie for the eventual Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals. Obviously he ended up losing that spot to long-time starter Braden Holtby, but it showed just how far he had come in his development and what the team thought of him. The Colorado Avalanche had big plans for him, too, when they traded for him and signed him to a new contract to hopefully be their long-term solution in net, but he has been one of the least productive goalies in the league this season and has seen his play badly regress. Projecting goalies is an exercise in failure, and the Avalanche are finding out just how difficult that can be. 

Sergei Bobrovsky is a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, has been one of the best goalies in the league since joining the Columbus Blue Jackets, and was entering a huge year for himself in trying to prove his worth in a contract season. All he has done this season is put together one of the worst single season performances of his career at what is perhaps the worst possible time. His play is one of the reasons an otherwise strong Blue Jackets team is on the playoff bubble instead of firmly in a postseason position. Given his age there is a huge risk in giving him a long-term contract after this season, but you can bet that somebody is going to do it. 

Before he departed for the KHL a few years ago Valeri Nichushkin looked like he had a chance to be a pretty solid NHL forward. The potential was certainly there for it, anyway. His return to the NHL and the Dallas Stars has, well, not been encouraging. In his first 42 games this season he has managed just seven assists and zero goals while getting just a little more than 12 minutes of ice-time per night. He is on the books for nearly $3 million both this season and next season. 

Justin Abdelkader is three years into a seven-year contract that contains a no-trade clause and has scored just five goals in 61 games this season. The shocking thing about the Detroit Red Wings' situation is they were one of the worst teams in the league but still have one of the oldest rosters and, for now, one of the worst salary cap outlooks. It has been an impressive run of mismanagement to get them in this position and contracts like the one given to Abelkader are a prime example of where things went wrong in recent years. Fortunately they have finally started to turn the page on a rebuild, but still have a long way to go with it before they can become a factor in the Stanley Cup discussion again.

Pick a player that isn't Connor McDavid, Leon Drasaitl, or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Any player. Any of them could fit here. It has been a terrible season for an Oilers franchise that is headed for another non-playoff year despite having the best player in the world, has already fired another head coach, another general manager, and seems to have no short-term hope of building anything meaningful around McDavid. Cam Talbot could have been the option here, but he was already traded. Jesse Puljujarvi looks to be the latest top draft pick this team is going to ruin, so that puts him in the disappointment spot, even if I'm not entirely sure it is his fault. They have had no idea how to use him or any concrete plan for his development. Just a bad situation for everybody involved. 

Perhaps age has finally caught up to him. Roberto Luongo is a Hall of Famer (he should be, anyway) and has been one of the best goalies of his era and until this season had still been playing at an impressively high level for a goalie in his late 30s. But father time eventually comes for everyone. The goaltending duo of Luongo and James Reimer has been a point of concern for the Panthers all season and has opened the door for them to possibly make a run at Sergei Bobrovsky this offseason. That means one of the the two goalies already under contact will have to almost certainly be on the move. 

The Los Angeles Kings were hoping that Ilya Kovalchuk's return to the NHL could jumpstart a lackluster and dull offense. It has not. The Kings are just as dull offensively as they've ever been (maybe even worse) and the first year of Kovalchuk's three-year, $18 million contract has resulted in only 13 goals and 28 total points through his first 50 games. Trading him might be the best for both sides as it would allow the now-rebuilding Kings to shed some future salary on another aging player, and it might allow Kovalchuk to get a fresh start on a team that might play better to his strengths. 

Yes, he has only been with the team for about a month, but it's not so much about the player himself, but what the player represents. Rask was already mired in a terrible season with the Carolina Hurricanes when the Wild acquired him by sending Nino Neiderreiter the other way. In doing so they sold low on a player that had been one of their best in recent years for a player that simply does not score. All that has happened since the trade is Niederreiter has rediscovered his scoring touch in Carolina and Rask has continued to provide next to nothing of value on the score sheet. That one is going to sting for a while in Minnesota. 

It almost has to be Karl Alzner just because of the financial commitment the Montreal Canadiens made to him and how little they have gotten out of it. It was always a questionable signing at the time, just due to the term and money for a player that had already started to clearly slow down. In just the second year of the contract he has appeared in only nine games this season at the NHL level,has been placed on waivers, and clearly has little to no future with the team. 

Kyle Turris was another one of general manager David Poile's big trade scores and was instantly signed to a long-term contract to be a part of the team's core. When healthy he is an outstanding player that can really booth a contender's depth down the middle. But injuries have limited him this season and his production has not quite been up to his normal career level when he has been on the ice. He has another level he can get to and if the Predators are going to get back to a Stanley Cup level they are going to need him to find it. 

It is starting to look as if it is never going to happen for Pavel Zacha with the New Jersey Devils. And by "it" I mean becoming an impact player. He has already set a new career high in goals, but in more than 193 games over parts of four seasons the Devils have just 27 goals (as of Feb. 20) from a player they used a No. 6 overall pick on. That is not good enough. 

Pretty much everyone on the New York Islanders has exceeded expectations this season, but if we are looking for one young player that has regressed a tad it might be Anthony Beauvillier. After scoring 20 goals in his first full-time season in the NHL a year ago, when he was one of the few bright spots on the team, his production has dropped in year two. He is still a talented player that figures to be a part of the Islanders' future, but you can definitely count this season as him falling victim to the sophomore slump. At least a little bit. 

It seems like the entire Kevin Shattenkirk experience in New York has been a disappointment. He was once one of the top offensive blue-liners in the league and a tremendous all-around player. A legitimate top-pairing defender. But his play has really declined over the past couple of years. He is down to just 18 minutes per night this season and he only has two goals on the season. He was at one time in his career a near lock for double-digits every year from the blue line. 

This is a hard one because the entire team is just fulfilling expectations by being the worst in the league ... but the top players have all been good and the young players have taken a big step forward. Magnus Paajarvi has probably been one of the least productive regulars on the team with almost no offensive production, some of the worst possession numbers, and a minus-19 mark that is worst among the team's forwards. 

Ivan Provorov hasn't necessarily been bad, but he has probably taken a step back. At least in terms of his production. After leading all NHL defenders in goal scored a year ago with 17, he is down to just six through his first 61 games this season while his possession numbers have taken a bit of a drop. He still figures to be a long-term core piece of the Flyers' rebuild, but he took a small step back this year. 

There were a lot of contenders for this title early in the season, ranging from Derick Brassard, to Daniel Sprong, to Carl Hagelin ... but all of them have already been traded. That leaves their big offseason acquisition, defenseman Jack Johnson. The Penguins front office and coaching staff are going to great lengths to boost him up, but the on-ice results paint an ugly picture and they still have him signed for another four seasons beyond this one. 

Martin Jones has never been one of the best goalies in the league, but ever since arriving in San Jose he has already been solid with moments of brilliance mixed in. None of that has been the case this season. He is fighting through one of the worst seasons of his career and is currently the weak link on an otherwise loaded Sharks team. They don't need him to be a game-stealer, they just need him to be someone that doesn't lose it. Goalie still seems to be the obvious position the Sharks should look to address at the trade deadline. 

For most of the first half the St. Louis Blues, as a team, were one of the biggest overall disappointments in the league, and at the center of that was a black hole in net. Jake Allen was supposed to take over the top spot after Carter Hutton left for Buffalo in free agency but struggled mightily in the role. He has since lost the job, at least for now, to rookie Jordan Binnington who has helped turn around the Blues' season. 

We are really grasping at straws to find a disappointment on the Tampa Bay Lightning. This is one of the best teams the NHL has seen in years, at least based on their current pace, and nearly everyone is playing at an incredibly high level. Ryan Callahan has a big contract, has missed some time, and just has not produced much when he has been in the lineup so he is probably the closest thing to a disappointment that there is ... even if his production is probably about what you might expect from him at this point in his career. 

Do not get used to this, because this is not going to last. After sitting out most of the first half of the season as an unsigned restricted free agent, William Nylander finally signed a long-term contract with the team to remain a part of its core moving forward. It has taken him some time to get back up to speed this season. He had a miserably slow start that brought on a ton of criticism, but he has started to pick it up as of late. He is too good of a player to stay down this long, but the Maple Leafs really have not gotten much out of him this season for multiple reasons. Imagine how good they could be when he starts to produce like he has before this season. 

Maybe expectations shouldn't have been very high. But the Vancouver Canucks invested a ton of money in Loui Eriksson three years ago and have not received much of a return on that investment. He has missed a lot of time due to injury over the previous two years, and now that he is finally healthy this season the production just has not been there. That is the risk you run in free agency when you spend big money on a player that has already played their best hockey for somebody else. 

A lot of regression was expected from this team in year two, and it has happened on both the individual and team level. One of the most notable examples has been the drop in production from Reilly Smith, one of the driving forces behind their improbable Stanley Cup Final run a season ago. His entire career has been a hot-and-cold, hit-and-miss run of seasons where he seems to alternate great years with ordinary years. This has been one of the ordinary years.

After a strong postseason showing in helping the Washington Capitals win their first ever Stanley Cup, big things were expected from Andre Burakovsky this season. It simply has not played out that way for him or the team. He has found himself in the dog house on more than occasion and his name has constantly been floating around on the trade block. He is still young enough and talented enough to make an impact at some point, but it just has not happened yet. 

This is a bold choice because he is still on pace to score more than 30 goals this season, maybe even make a push at 35, but this probably is not the season the Winnipeg Jets expected from one of the game's young stars. Through his first 60 games all of his production is down across the board (goals, assists, points) but there is a good sign mixed in there: His shot numbers have actually gone up, indicating that maybe he's just been snake bit a little this season with some bad shooting luck. Either way, this is a player that was thought to be a contender for the goal-scoring crown this year and he is not even anywhere near the top.