Welcome to RANKED. Every week during the NHL season, we will be ranking players, moments, and anything else we can think of throughout hockey history. This week, we’re rating how panicked some underperforming teams should be.
We are approaching one of the early landmarks in the NHL season: American Thanksgiving.
This holiday will either provide a sigh of relief or some anxious sweating for all 32 teams. For those that are unfamiliar with the importance of the holiday to the hockey calendar, if a team is in a playoff spot by Thanksgiving — roughly six weeks into the season — there is a massive chance it still will be after 82 games have been played.
With the holiday coming this week, we have decided to look at teams that had high preseason expectations and rank them by how panicked they should be. Some teams might be just fine with taking another year to hold back and draft in the top 10, while some need to win immediately.
Who should be freaking out right now?
Sure, the Senators could be doing a lot more and their depth is a little weak, but they probably should not be panicking at all.
By points percentage – because of their lack of games played – they are still right in the hunt and sit above teams like the Penguins, with an 8-7-0 record. A win streak combined with some losses by their competitors could land them in a playoff spot before some people have had their turkey.
The Devils are coming off a season in which they finished with the third-most points in the NHL. Their breakout year was something to behold, as stars like Jack Hughes came into their own and a stellar support group of top-tier skill players did their thing. So when they now find themselves falling behind some teams like the Philadelphia Flyers, it is slightly astonishing.
But they still have such a young group and there is not really any massive pressure to repeat what they did last time around. It is slightly disappointing, but the fix really is just between the pipes. If they didn’t have an .888 save percentage between Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid, they wouldn’t be on this list and could be on top of their division. Patch that one hole and the Devils are golden.
The forgotten franchise of the Tri-State area, the Islanders are in a weird spot. They have some young players like Noah Dobson and the in-prime Mathew Barzal making an impact, but they really put themselves in a crude timeline to find success. They signed Bo Horvat and Pierre Engvall to massive deals, and still have veterans like Anders Lee, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock, and Scott Mayfield tied up in contracts for at least the next three seasons. That’s a lot of cash.
With players staying on Long Island through their mid-30s, they really should be finding success every season or it will be very messy. A .500 point percentage is not good enough right now.
Just like the Islanders, the Predators put themselves in this position. Former GM David Poile could have pushed the eject button and kickstarted a strong and short rebuild by trading franchise face Filip Forsberg before his last contract ran out.
But the Predators kept Forsberg and have now tried to sustain some success around him under new GM Barry Trotz by adding players like Luke Schenn, Ryan O’Reilly, and Gustav Nyquist last summer.
Luckily, teams will certainly still want Forsberg with his current contract. Goaltender Juuse Saros has two years left on his deal and Roman Josi probably isn’t going anywhere. They can turn this around quickly if they don’t get more wins this year.
The Predators are one of the most wishy-washy teams in the league. They don’t want to fully commit and bring in the top stars available, but they also don’t want to lose anyone notable. Nashville might just need to get used to hanging around the middle. With no expectations, there shouldn’t be too much panic, maybe just frustration.
The “this is their year to make the jump” horse has been beaten beyond death. After surprising some hockey fans by missing the playoffs by one single point, the Sabres were expected to improve this year and find themselves back in the NHL postseason for the first time since 2011.
With a healthy roster full of top-tier young talent, the sky appeared to be the limit, but they currently own an 8-9-1 record and are more than a game’s worth of points outside of the playoffs. They have a minus-6 goal differential and some players are not performing the way they were expected to – Peyton Krebs has one point through 17 games, and only six skaters have over 10 points. Nothing is clicking.
A lengthy injury to Tage Thompson is not ideal, so the lack of success could be solely blamed on that, but the panic should still be setting in.
But they are certainly not in the worst position, as they still have a respectable record. Even if they don’t make the playoffs, there’s hope in young rookies developing and prospects breaking through. There shouldn’t be too much anxiety about the near future in Buffalo.
If we did this ranking a few weeks ago, the Flames would be competing for the top spot. But somehow they have pulled themselves up from the bottom and find themselves just a few points out of the playoffs. A 5-3-2 record in their last 10 games has earned them a .472 points percentage on the season and they are rescuing what appeared to be a miserable campaign.
But still, like most teams on this list, they set themselves up with pressure and expectations. Jonathan Huberdeau’s eight-year, $84-million contract alone puts them in a precarious position. Now, they need to justify the deal – along with keeping MacKenzie Weegar and signing Nazem Kadri – by making the playoffs consistently. They have obviously not done this.
Unfortunately, there is not a strong prospect pool to rescue this team and there is pressure to win now with a lot of veterans wanting out.
Expectations for the Wild have always been to just keep the status quo — stay in the race and see what happens in the spring. With neither the status quo or improvements happening in the State of Hockey, there should be some alarm bells ringing as loud as ever.
The Wild are 5-8-4 overall, and 2-5-3 in their last 10 games. They are falling fast. Two rookies in Marco Rossi and Brock Faber have arguably been their best players, with Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy going completely quiet.
To go from a 103-point team last season — and a 113-point team the season before that — to a bottom-five club at this precious Thanksgiving milestone is a disaster.
As an added worry, there is the notorious $15 million of dead cap because of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyouts. General manager Bill Guerin also wanted to keep some players around and locked in aging veterans like Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, Frederick Gaudreau, and Marcus Foligno for the next few years. There is no incoming flexibility for this roster or breakout stars coming to the rescue.
They are set with the way they built this team for the next couple of seasons and right now they look like a team comfortable with finishing a couple dozen points out of the playoffs.
Anyone who saw the headline of this article could have predicted the Oilers would be at the very top of the list. This is a team with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl that finds itself with a 5-11-1 record and most likely not making the playoffs. Any year where these players aren’t playing more than 82 games is abhorrent and somewhat disrespectful to people wanting to watch generational players play good hockey.
There should be substantial amounts of panic and worry running through the halls of Rogers Arena. A big trade could be coming, or something even worse: A disgruntled star player.
Nothing else needs to be said. The Oilers’ season is most likely already done and some changes might be on the horizon that could make the next few years even worse.
