6 Teams Stuck in NHL Purgatory
Fans of early 1970s one-hit musical wonders might be familiar with the paraphrase:
Contenders to the left of us/Disasters to the right
Here we are/Stuck in NHL purgatory with you
While some of the league's 32 teams are considering tooling up for a springtime run at a Stanley Cup and others are pondering the mathematical chances they'll land an imminent superstar named Connor Bedard, a handful can't make a firm lean in either direction.
Good enough to make the playoffs. Not good enough to make a deep run toward a title. And already tied up with enough long-term investments to prevent a full-throated rebuild.
The B/R hockey staff took a look at the current NHL landscape and identified a half-dozen teams whose status reports match the one described. Take a look at what we came up with and drop a line to let us know how we did and to provide a take or two of your own.
Edmonton Oilers
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Perhaps the photo on the intro slide gave it away.
But anyone following the NHL long enough knows the tale of the Edmonton Oilers.
Their top six, and often their top line, includes a pair of players who've copped three Hart trophies and five Art Ross trophies between them and are on pace to add more hardware this season given their first- and second-place standings in the league scoring race.
Still, even after several seasons of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers have zero titles to brag about and entered the second half of 2022-23 walking the Western Conference's playoff cutline with little reason to believe a banner hoist is on the way.
Their first half has been wildly inconsistent, thanks in large part to a severe injury sustained by burly winger Evander Kane and the comprehensively unimpressive arrival of free-agent goaltender Jack Campbell, who took a five-year, $25 million deal to leave Toronto.
In fact, more than $54 million in salary for 2024-25 is already committed to nine players.
Those outlays and others have the Oilers among the league's leaders in lack of salary-cap space, which has hamstrung general manager Ken Holland's efforts to reel in a defenseman who could address the team's average of 32.2 shots allowed per game—11th-worst in the league.
And...tick, tick, tick...McDavid will be a free agent in 2026-27.
Nashville Predators
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The Nashville Predators get full credit for consistency.
They've reached the playoffs for eight consecutive seasons, and 11 of the last 13, but haven't escaped the first round since 2017-18 and have gone past two rounds just once in franchise history—on the way to a six-game loss to Pittsburgh in the 2017 Stanley Cup Final.
They've played jump rope with the Western Conference's playoff cutline this season and were seven points off the pace entering Sunday's games, following a four-game win streak with a skid that reached three games after a 5-3 home loss to Buffalo on Saturday.
Precisely zero Predators were among the league's top-50 scorers heading into Sunday's games, and only three—Filip Forsberg (58), Roman Josi (89) and Matt Duchene (100)—were in the top 100, so it's not as if a potent offense is likely to change Nashville's prospects.
In fact, goaltender Juuse Saros has been the team's best and most consistent player, posting a .919 save percentage and 2.73 goals-against average that are among the league's best.
Forsberg staying around with an eight-year, $68 million deal was a highlight of the offseason, but the Predators have seven other players making at least $5 million annually for two more season after this one, which will make targeted or even wholesale changes difficult.
New York Islanders
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The New York Islanders, too, are a model of consistency.
They've participated in six of the last 10 postseasons and have won at least a series in four of them, including consecutive trips to the playoff final four in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Unfortunately for them, they encountered the eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning in both trips, losing in competitive six- and seven-game series, respectively.
A new arena, a raft of injuries and a spate of COVID-related absences torpedoed the team's chances at a third run in 2021-22, but the Islanders are off to a respectable start this season and found themselves a point clear of the Eastern Conference cutline heading into Sunday.
But there's a big gap between making the cut and making a hoist.
Goaltender Ilya Sorokin is among the league's best and has the Islanders fifth among 32 teams in goals-against average (2.66), and he's kept the team afloat most nights thanks to a once-again spotty offense that's just 22nd-best with 3.02 goals per game.
GM Lou Lamoriello has never been one to shy away from a big move in the past, and New York's $2.3 million in available cap space might allow for some transactions. However, they've got eight players aged 30 or older who are signed at least through 2023-24, so they may not have a lot of attractive pieces with which to trigger roster-shifting phone calls.
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Pittsburgh Penguins
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Not too long ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins were the gold standard.
They won consecutive Stanley Cups after 2015-16 and 2016-17 and have reached the playoffs for 16 straight seasons, and they should contend for another berth this season given their just-off-the-pace standing in the Eastern Conference race through 42 games.
They've been fielding the "is the championship window still open?" questions for several years since the last title parade ended and as stars Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin arrived to their mid-30s.
GM Ron Hextall went all-in on sentiment in the offseason, re-signing Malkin and fellow veteran Cup-winner Kris Letang to contracts that'll pay them $6.1 million annually. Malkin's deal is for four years and Letang's for six, and the two of them with Crosby, now 35, will eat up $20.9 million in salary next season—a shade more than 25 percent of the payroll.
Another comparative old-timer, 38-year-old Jeff Carter, is due another $3.1 million next season, and five more players already 30 or beyond are locked down as well.
Like many of the other teams included, the Penguins have little to no wiggle room when it comes to the cap, so it'll take some pretty creative ideas from Hextall and perhaps a third-party team willing to take on heavy salary for them to escape the dreaded middle tier.
Vancouver Canucks
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Patrik Allvin has got some things to deal with.
The Vancouver GM took over the job amid the chaos of a 2021-22 season in which coach Travis Green and then-GM Jim Benning were fired and the Canucks endured an awful start on the way to finishing 10th in the Western Conference and missing the playoffs.
It was the second straight miss and the seventh in nine seasons for Vancouver since a run of consistency that had included five straight postseasons and a trip to the 2010-11 Cup Final.
And in the smoldering embers of last season's inferno, issues remain.
A spate of games in which they've surrendered multi-goal leads had the Canucks five games below .500 entering Sunday and 14 points off the pace of the nearest playoff contender.
The future of team captain Bo Horvat has been a topic all season thanks to the arrival of his unrestricted free agency next summer, and though his exit would take $5.5 million off the Vancouver books, it'd also cost the team the league's fourth-leading goal-scorer (30) and 22nd-highest point producer through Saturday's games.
Left in his wake will be several players who'll be harder to unload, including eight signed for the long term to whom more than $45 million—better than half the anticipated 2024-25 salary cap—is already committed. Prominent on that list is J.T. Miller, who was extended for $8 million a year in a head-scratching deal last September.
And due for a decision prior to that season will be Elias Pettersson, who'll be a restricted free agent after signing a three-year bridge deal prior to 2021-22.
Good luck, Mr. Allvin. And don't skimp on the aspirin.
Washington Capitals
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All things considered, maybe the Washington Capitals don't have it so bad.
They reached Sunday's games with a four-point hold on an Eastern Conference playoff spot, and there's a guy on their roster you might have heard of—goes by the name Alex Ovechkin—whose every goal-scoring move this season has become a galvanizing event.
So even if things don't pan out for the next season or two, the Great 8's chase of Wayne Gretzky's NHL goal-scoring record will guarantee full houses at home and on the road.
As for the rest of the on-ice product, well...we'll see.
The Capitals were 13th overall in the league and have reached the playoffs in eight straight seasons and 14 of the last 15, so it'll be no surprise if they creep into the lower tier of the conference mix again this season. But they've lost in the first round four straight times since winning the Stanley Cup in 2017-18, and it'd be an upset it the streak didn't hit five.
As for the future, Ovechkin is signed for $9.5 million annually through 2025-26 as he pursues legend status, but it's the presence of five other 30-somethings—Nicklas Bäckström (35), Evgeny Kuznetsov (30), T.J. Oshie (36), Darcy Kuemper (32) and John Carlson (33)—at a combined $36 million through 2024-25 that'll make a significant uptick difficult.
Their ninth-place standing in goals-against average (2.76) certainly won't hurt the possibility of a competitive series or two come playoff time, but their 15th-place standing in goal scoring won't make it easy. And the presence of so many high-ticket contracts, and the gymnastics needed when/if Carlson comes off long-term injured reserve, won't help either.
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