With the season underway in the NHL, and through the offseason, NHLRumors.com brought you different series most recently looking at the surprising teams in the East and West. Now we are going to look at the disappointing teams in both the Eastern and Western Conferences.
NHL Rumors: Ottawa Senators, Edmonton Oilers, Carolina Hurricanes and Patrick Kane
In Part One of a two-part series, we will be once again heading out to begin this series. Two of these teams come from the Pacific Division and North of the Border, while the other comes from the Central with the Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, and Minnesota Wild.
Western Conference Disappointing Teams
Edmonton Oilers
One of the biggest disappointments of the season thus far has been the Edmonton Oilers. If you look at it the Oilers were a Stanley Cup favorite at the beginning of the season. They were even picked by some to win the Stanley Cup.
However, the Oilers after losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in Round 2 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, continue to have the same problems exposed. One, they cannot get a timely save. And two, their defense continues to get exposed. You can add in a laundry list of items, which also include the Oilers are a two-man team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. And when they get shut down the Oilers have no secondary scoring.
NHL Rumors: Is Jay Woodcroft on the hot seat in Edmonton? How can they turn this around?
This is a big road trip for the Oilers this week. It could determine the fate of head coach Jay Woodcroft. Again this is not on him. The Oilers were up against the salary cap and GM Ken Holland‘s hands were tied. But they were supposed to be better than this. However, Woodcroft changing the defensive system from man-to-man to a zone-plus-one has hurt this team and the goaltending.
Something has to change as the Oilers continue to fall behind the Vancouver Canucks, Los Angeles Kings, and Golden Knights. That change might be the head coach, but it does not just fall on him it falls on the players as well.
Calgary Flames
Another team in Western Canada that is having real problems is the Calgary Flames. There were some who felt the Flames were going to bounce back and make the playoffs this season. The Flames only missed the playoffs last year by a couple of points. Again, if they beat teams they were supposed to maybe Darryl Sutter remains the head coach and Brad Treliving is the GM. Again, who knows?
And that is where we need to begin with this team. It takes time for a new coach to see his system deployed properly, but something is off with this Flames team. Darryl Sutter is no longer there. Players are calling out other players in the media and free agents that were close to re-signing are having talks put on hold.
NHL Rumors: A Rebuild In Calgary Would be a Painful One
Jonathan Huberdeau does not look like the guy he was in Florida. He can’t be in shock anymore. Not to mention the team committed to him for the next eight seasons. This is year one of that eight-year contract extension. They need more from him and Nazem Kadri. You have to feel bad for Ryan Huska, the Flames head coach, because something is just not clicking.
Jacob Markstrom has been better, but he is still not back to his old self. Ever since this team lost to the Oilers in the playoffs, the Flames have not been the same team.
Minnesota Wild
Then there are the Minnesota Wild. This was a team many people expected to be in the top three in the Central Division. They have time to turn things around. However, it is getting late early for all these teams.
The Wild have the offensive talent with Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson-Ek, and the list goes on and on. However, slow starts to games have done this team so far this season. Having to play from behind so much in games takes a toll on the players. And the looks head coach Dean Evanson is giving makes you wonder if he is on the hot seat as well.
Goaltending which was a backbone of the team last year, has been shaky to start. Filip Gustavsson is not the same guy he was last year. While Marc-Andre Fleury has been good enough. Not having Jared Spurgeon on the back end has not helped matters either.
They just got a big victory the other night. You hope things start to turn around for them, but again the Wild have to do it fast or their season could be over real quick.
Many will wonder why the San Jose Sharks are not on this list. There were no expectations for that team this year. None whatsoever. However, the Sharks are getting towards historically bad levels. San Jose has given up 10 goals in back-to-back games. The Sharks are truly hitting rock bottom when it comes to the rebuild as they are not giving their fans any signs of hope unlike what we are seeing in Anaheim.
That does it for the Western Conference NHL Disappointing Teams. In Part Two of the series we look at the Eastern Conference NHL Disappointing Teams comes tomorrow.
