The NHL's most disappointing teams so far this season

The first quarter of the 2018-19 NHL season has produced some interesting results.

The teams getting the most attention will almost certainly be the positive developments, such as the Buffalo Sabres looking like a playoff team — and an exciting one at that! — or the rebuilding New York Rangers exceeding early expectations and finding themselves in an early playoff position.

Because the sports universe tends to be balanced, if there are a few positive standouts then it stands to reason that there are also going to be some disappointing teams as well.

This article is about those teams: the teams that are not doing what we expected. And there are some surprising ones, starting with a team that has won three championships over the past decade, including two of the past three.

Pittsburgh Penguins. After winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2015-16 and 2016-17, the Pittsburgh Penguins were finally knocked off their championship throne in the second round of the playoffs this past season, losing to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals in a ridiculously close series that could have easily gone either way.

Given the fact they were returning a significant portion of the team that had much success over the past three years and were going to get a full season of Derick Brassard as their third-line center behind Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to give them the vaunted three-headed monster that has made them so tough, they were one of the top Stanley Cup contenders entering the season.

But a quarter of the way in, the Pens find themselves near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and facing a pretty tough task when it comes to getting back into a playoff position.

Pretty much everything has been a struggle for them so far, ranging from their defensive zone play, to the goaltending, to the fact they have dealt with some pretty significant injuries, the latest being to goalie Matt Murray, who was just placed on injured reserve. On the plus side, when they have all of Crosby, Malkin and Brassard in the lineup, their record is excellent. If they can just keep all three healthy, they might still be a contender. But they are not there yet.

Vegas Golden Knights.  The Golden Knights were the story in the NHL during the 2017-18 season, making a seemingly improbable and an unprecedented run to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. They followed it up in the offseason by signing Paul Stastny in free agency and then trading for Max Pacioretty.

Together Stastny and Pacioretty were expected to be the foundation of a second scoring line that could complement the dynamic top line. But an injury to Stastny and a slow start from Pacioretty have thrown a wrench into those plans.

Also working against them was a 20-game suspension to their top defender, Nate Schmidt, and a terrible start from their goaltenders, including starter Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury was a key part of their Year 1 success, as he played some of the best hockey of his career. But he has not been anywhere near the same goalie so far.

Some regression was inevitable, but this has probably been more than was expected.

Los Angeles Kings. The Kings probably weren't expected to be a serious Stanley Cup contender, but they also probably weren't expected to be the worst team in the league either. So far, that is exactly what they are.

They simply do not have enough high-end talent on their roster, as the depth drops off substantially once you get beyond Anze Kopitar, Drew Doughty, Jeff Carter and Ilya Kovalchuk. Add in the fact that their top two goalies ( Jonathan Quick and Jack Campbell) have been injured, and there just is not much to be excited about here.

They have not made it out of the first round of the playoffs since their 2014 Stanley Cup win and even have missed the playoffs a couple of times. They seem destined to miss again this season and could be headed in a direction that keeps them out of the postseason for a few years.

They already parted ways with head coach John Stevens, but it is hard to see how he is responsible for the current state of the team given the roster he had to work with.

St. Louis Blues. This is a strange one. The Blues have been one of the best defensive teams in the league for a while now. What crushed them a year ago was the fact they just did not have anywhere near enough offense to compete. So they went all out this offseason to address that by trading for Ryan O'Reilly, signing David Perron and Tyler Bozak,, adding all of that to a team that already has Vladimir Tarasenko, Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz.

Even though O'Reilly has been sensational to start the year, the team still finds itself near both the bottom of the league in total offense and the bottom of the league standings.

The team also has not received any decent goaltending, following the offseason departure of Carter Hutton.

With the Blues' disappointing start, they became one of four teams in the month of November to make a coaching change, replacing Mike Yeo with former Philadelphia Flyers head coach Craig Berube.

Will that be enough to get things headed in the right direction? Too soon to say, but if they do not start getting more offense out of players other than O'Reilly or get some improved goaltending from Jake Allen, it is not going to matter who the head coach is.

Florida Panthers. The 2017-18 Florida Panthers were a tale of two teams.

The first team, which we saw in the first half of the season, was a bitter disappointment that looked to be one of the worst in the league.

The second team, the one we saw in the second half, played like one of the best in the league over the final three months and nearly found a way to make the playoffs, falling just a single point short.

That strong finish, combined with the offseason addition of Mike Hoffman, created a lot of expectation that the Panthers would be able to make their first playoff appearance since the 2015-16 season.

Instead, it has simply been a repeat of the 2017-18 season, where a terrible start out of the gate may ruin their playoff chances before the halfway point. That is despite having one of the league's best two-way players in Aleksander Barkov and getting strong play from Hoffman and Evgenii Dadonov.

One of the biggest problems this season has been subpar goaltending, especially as James Reimer and Michael Hutchinson struggled to fill in for an injured Roberto Luongo early on. Making matters worse is that Luongo has started to show signs of slowing down (as he will eventually do given that he is now in his age 39 season) when he has been on the ice.