Biggest Winners and Losers from the 2014-15 NHL Regular Season

The NHL's regular season is officially in the books after a jam-packed Saturday that featured all 30 teams in the finale.

The final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference were decided, with the Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins rounding out the field. A few trophies have been determined as well.

Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn claimed the scoring title and Art Ross Trophy with a hat-trick and four-point performance Saturday. Carey Price and Dustin Tokarski share the Jennings Trophy for the lowest goals-against average as a team. We already knew the New York Rangers were taking home the Presidents' Trophy for the best regular-season point total.

These are some of the obvious winners of the 2014-15 NHL campaign. There are plenty more who join them without hardware to haul in just yet. There are also some losers who fell well short of expectations.

Click ahead to take a look at the biggest winners and losers of the regular season and get ready for the NHL playoffs.

Winner: Canadian Franchises

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Last year, the Montreal Canadiens were the sole representative of the Nation to the North. This season, five of the seven Canadian teams have qualified—some in spectacular fashion.

The Ottawa Senators overcame a massive 14-point deficit in just two months of hockey, finishing with a 23-4-4 record down the stretch to pass the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Calgary Flames, who finished 27th a year ago, eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings from the postseason in Game 81 to lock up their own spot in the playoffs.

The Winnipeg Jets also benefited from the Flames' win over the Kings in the form of the city's first playoff appearance in 19 years (although the team didn't reside in Winnipeg for most of those). Vancouver bounces back into the playoffs after missing out last year, while the Habs hope to avenge their loss last year in the Eastern Conference Final.

Sorry, Toronto and Edmonton, but best of luck in the draft lottery.

Loser: The Reigning Champs

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Winners of two of the past three Stanley Cups, the Los Angeles Kings will not have a shot at making it three in four. With their loss to the Flames on Thursday, they lost their chance at qualifying and became the first defending champ to miss the playoffs the season immediately following one in which they won the NHL title since the 2006-07 Carolina Hurricanes.

The Kings were a terrible road team, with a 15-18-8 record away from the Staples Center this year. They also couldn't earn an extra point in overtime or shootouts to save their playoff lives, going 1-7 in overtime and 2-8 in shootouts.

They've also had some bad luck with the Slava Voynov suspension, the mid-season injury to Tanner Pearson and late-season blow to newcomer Andrej Sekera. Other teams have overcome big losses, however, and the Kings looked very different than the champs all season despite having a roster that looked very much the same.

Meanwhile, the Presidents' Trophy winners of a year ago, the Boston Bruins, were left in the cold on the final night, with a shootout loss and a Pittsburgh Penguins win officially eliminating the 2011 Stanley Cup champs.

According to Sportsnet Stats, it's the first time the defending Stanley Cup champs and overall points leader in the regular season have both missed the playoffs the following year since 1968-69.

Winner: Goaltenders

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As many as three goaltenders could get votes for the Hart Trophy as the player deemed most valuable to his team in the NHL. Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens got the nod for the Hart Trophy in the B/R Experts' NHL Awards piece and is the runaway favorite among NHL coaches, according to TSN hockey insider Bob McKenzie's end of season coaches' poll.

Twenty-two goaltenders who started at least 20 games finished with save percentages of .915 or better, with another half-dozen just off that mark. Three of them were over .930, another trio were .925 or better and 10 more recorded .920 or higher.

Price finished top among all starters in save percentage and goals-against average. Given what a low-scoring team the Canadiens were, Price deserves every bit of credit for their Atlantic Division-winning performance and all the hardware that will come his way as a result.

Devan Dubnyk was hot on Price's heels following a trade to the Minnesota Wild from the Arizona Coyotes, which propelled him into the upper echelon of netminders.

Despite an injury that slowed his momentum mid-season, Pekka Rinne finished as his team's MVP, helping the Nashville Predators back into the playoffs after missing out last season.

Loser: Gary Bettman

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As hard as he tries, Gary Bettman can't get scoring to rise—not even with the rules eliminating obstruction, dissuading goalies from handling the pucks and preventing teams from icing the puck without the punishment of having to stay on the ice without a rest.

The Art Ross race went at a turtle's pace in comparison to past seasons. It was exciting, as Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn emerged with 87 points in 82 games to lock up the hardware on the NHL's final night of the regular season, but it was not nearly as high as totals have historically been at the very top.

Excluding the lockout-shortened 2013 season, the Art Ross winner has finished with triple digits every year since Martin St. Louis won it with 94 points in 2003-04. The previous lowest total was Stan Mikita's 87 in 1968—and teams only played 74 games back then.

Winner: The Buffalo Sabres

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The Sabres are winners based on their losing.

They clinched the best draft lottery odds for this coming spring with two of the most hyped prospects since Sidney Crosby up for grabs. The Sabres have a 20 percent chance of winning the first overall pick—which would allow them the opportunity to take the top-ranked Connor McDavid—and can't finish worse than second.

That means that even if they lose the lottery, the consolation prize is Boston University freshman Jack Eichel, who recently won the Hobey Baker Award as the best college player—a prize NHL rookie-of-the-year candidate Johnny Gaudreau took last season.

If ever there was a team that gave new meaning to the work "tank," it was this year's Sabres, who traded away both goalies, a former Calder-winning defenseman and some of their top veterans at the trade deadline.

Loser: The San Jose Sharks

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Lost amid all the talk about the Detroit Red Wings' impressive 23-season playoff streak continuing is the fact the second-longest run ended.

The San Jose Sharks were stunned after losing a stranglehold 3-0 lead over the Los Angeles Kings in the first round last spring and everyone waited for something to happen in the offseason. It did, with Joe Thornton being stripped of his captaincy and the team going with a bunch of assistants instead.

But they didn't deal a veteran, and the team looked very much the same—it just performed much, much worse. San Jose was middle of the road in points per game and seventh worst in goals against.

San Jose Mercury News writer David Pollack wrote a great breakdown of some key moments from the team's worst season since 2002-03. After a 22nd-place finish, it's hard to imagine the big changes talked about last offseason won't come to pass this time around.

Thornton essentially called GM Doug Wilson a liar and told him to keep his mouth shut. The team's defensive game was a total mess, and if the Sharks were located in a bigger market, much more attention would be paid to how brutal this year has been.

Winner: Jaromir Jagr

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Jaromir Jagr is nothing short of amazing.

He's 43 but showing no signs of wanting to retire. His ice time—and therefore production—was limited in New Jersey, but he was back to his future Hall of Fame self after his deadline deal to the Florida Panthers.

He recently passed Ron Francis for fourth on the NHL's career points list and now sits behind legends Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and Gordie Howe. Assuming he's not joking, Jagr plans to play seven more seasons and is already within striking distance of both Howe and Messier.

He's enjoyed his time with the Panthers so much that there's talk about a potential multi-year contract, even though he's said in the past he would take his career one season at a time.

Loser: Alexander Semin

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When the Carolina Hurricanes signed Alex Semin to a five-year extension a couple of years ago, some wondered whether it was a good idea to take away monetary motivation from the mercurial Russian. Last season, it seemed to have paid off. He had 22 goals and 42 points in 65 games but missed time due to injury.

This year, he was a healthy scratch at times and in coach Bill Peters' doghouse. He posted his worst totals as an NHLer with six goals and 19 points in 57 contests. He was a fantasy player's nightmare.

He was often mentioned as a possible buyout, waiver option or potential trade bait, although none of that materialized. We'll see what the offseason brings.

We've all seen what he's capable of. At the Washington Capitals, he was one of the most dynamic playmakers in the entire league, posting multiple 30-goal seasons and even reaching 40. When he's focused and motivated, he's still got the potential to be a point-per-game player.

He never got going this season and was one of the league's biggest individual disappointments.

Winner: Alex Ovechkin

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Not only did Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin crack the 50-goal mark for the sixth time in 10 seasons, he took steps toward changing the perception that he's a one-dimensional player.

In part, that comes by improving his plus-minus to plus-10 from minus-35 (second worst in the league) a year ago. But more than that, it comes from him buying into a new system brought in by new coach Barry Trotz.

Ovechkin's closest competitor in the goal department was a full 10 off his pace, which says a lot about how hard it's been to score goals this season and how good Ovechkin is at doing exactly that.

Loser: Phil Kessel

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Toronto Maple Leafs winger Phil Kessel posted his lowest goal total in a non-lockout season since his sophomore season. Worse, he didn't seem to care much. There was little fight in the much-maligned but very talented 27-year-old.

The Leafs were a mess, but Kessel defined what was wrong with the team. His lack of commitment to a structured game plan contributed to him finishing with the second-worst plus/minus rating in the league during his weakest offensive season since 2009.

Part of the season of stink included former coach Ron Wilson throwing Kessel under the bus, calling him unreliable and inconsistent.

Winner: The Rookie Class

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Only 10 rookies have managed to finish with 60 points in their freshman season over the past decade—Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Brad Boyes, Paul Stastny, Patrick Kane, Anze Kopitar, Nicklas Backstrom, Jeff Skinner and Nathan MacKinnon.

This season, Johnny Gaudreau (Calgary Flames), Filip Forsberg (Nashville Predators) and Mark Stone (Ottawa Senators) all cracked that mark.

On top of the impressive offensive trio, a couple of defensive players have had incredible and Calder Trophy-worthy campaigns. It will be tough to select a winner this year. Both the Florida Panthers' Aaron Ekblad, a teenager drafted just last spring, and Dallas Stars blueliner John Klingberg put up solid numbers across the board and played huge roles for their respective teams.

Any one of these five players could win the Calder, while another dozen rookies were more than just placeholders in NHL lineups this season.

Loser: Jonathan Drouin

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Jonathan Drouin is one of the exceptions to the rookie group this year.

He was hands down the favorite to win the Calder Trophy ahead of the season but has only recently been able to carve out any sort of consistency. He eventually got some time on the Steven Stamkos line after being expected to be the perfect playmaking complement to the team's top sniper.

If he was disappointed with being sent back to junior while former teammate Nathan MacKinnon kicked off his pro career with a Calder Trophy in Colorado, Drouin will also consider his four-goal, 32-point effort in his first NHL season a downer.

He's extremely talented and can take solace in the fact MacKinnon struggled as a sophomore. As they mature, the two of them will no doubt be big contributors for years to come.