The Biggest Regret For The NHL's Most Disappointing Teams

As the 2024-25 NHL Regular Season winds down and teams start to get eliminated from contention for the playoffs, it's time for those on the outside looking in to take stock of what went wrong and what they could have done better.

It's hard work putting together a team to chase a Stanley Cup, but not everyone will make the right moves or have the best luck.

Here, we have assembled a pack of teams whose seasons have not gone as well as expected, and we will try to boil down their disappointment into one major factor they'd love to change.

Boston Bruins

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Jeremy Swayman

Quite a few teams have disappointed this season, but it's hard to look past the Boston Bruins as having one of the biggest regrets.

The Bruins were second in the Atlantic Division a year ago after winning the Presidents' Trophy in 2023.

This year, though, they are fighting to stay in the wild-card race in the East and things aren't looking great. For all of Boston's issues this year and all of the perplexing decisions it made, one sticks out most of all: Dragging their feet on re-signing Jeremy Swayman.

The netminder and the Bruins didn't agree on a new contract until early October just before the start of the regular season. That meant he didn't get any work in training camp, nor did he get any reps throughout the preseason. Not coincidentally, his season got off to a slow start.

Swayman went 3-4-1 in October with a .884 save percentage and a 3.57 goals-against average, his worst-performing month of the season. The Bruins' terrible start to the campaign got them in a hole early and turned the rest of the season into a fight to get out of it.

They're six points out of the second wild-card spot and were sellers at the trade deadline.

Had the Bruins not started so badly and spent the entire offseason and training camp trying to persuade Swayman into taking a lesser contract, maybe Brad Marchand wouldn't be trying to help the Florida Panthers win another Stanley Cup.

Nashville Predators

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Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos

This was not how the season was supposed to go for the Predators, yet here they are with one of the five worst records in the NHL and only being kept out of the Western Conference basement by the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks.

Their additions of Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Luke Schenn didn't propel them up the standings to challenge in the Central Division as they hoped and instead, they moved Schenn at the deadline while the team stayed mired.

Their offense is the worst in the NHL with 2.54 goals per game, and they've allowed 3.26 goals per game which ties them for seventh-most in the league.

Nashville has the league's lowest shooting percentage at 8.59 percent and it's hard to predict that would have happened after they shot 10.07 percent last season.

Also distressing is goalie Juuse Saros' .897 save percentage this season (league average is .901) and knowing his eight-year, $61.92 million extension kicks in next year as a 30-year-old.

The moves in the summer were done in the belief their incredible run to the playoffs last season was the start of something good and they were going to become a regular Cup contender.

Instead, they'll be waiting to see whether the draft lottery ping-pong balls go in their favor.

Buffalo Sabres

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In some respects, it's hard to criticize Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams for some of the moves he made in the offseason.

He helped remodel their bottom-six forward group with solid veterans and made a bold trade that sent top prospect Matt Savoie to Edmonton for third-line center Ryan McLeod which got him raked over the coals by many.

However, McLeod is having a career year and has been one of the most pleasant surprises across the NHL, never mind in Buffalo.

Jason Zucker also proved to be a very good addition in free agency, and his play earned him a two-year extension.

However, as good as the 33-year-old has been, the team needed more beyond him to deepen a lineup that was again the youngest in the NHL.

Their need to find a steady partner for defenseman Owen Power again proved to be an issue and that's even with keeping in mind how savvy the Bo Byram deal a year ago was to help the defense out in general.

That said, the recent trade that sent Dylan Cozens and a second-round pick to Ottawa for Josh Norris and Jacob Bernard-Docker will bear watching to see who works out best in their new homes.

For every good thing the Sabres have done, two other noticeable issues seemed to go unaddressed. Think back to two summers ago when Jack Quinn ruptured his Achilles tendon, Buffalo opted to weather his absence and fill from within only to have things not work out as planned.

The Sabres are trying hard, but it's another season without the playoffs and their postseason drought is now approaching 14 years.

New York Rangers

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Chris Kreider

If it's felt like something has been "off" with the Rangers all season, you're not alone in that because it's been fairly obvious.

New York's veteran team was coming off a Presidents' Trophy-winning season and entered this season with eyes on the Stanley Cup.

Instead, they're in a fight for a wild-card berth in the East and duking it out with the Canadiens, Islanders, Blue Jackets and Red Wings. Their roster isn't drastically different, but there was a moment earlier this season that sent them spiraling in the wrong direction.

Think back to earlier in the season when GM Chris Drury floated the possibility that anyone could be traded including then-captain Jacob Trouba or Chris Kreider. In Trouba's case, it came months after they attempted to trade him in the summer.

Instead of sparking a rally, they continued losing hard games and required Drury to meet with players to calm things down.

Trouba was eventually traded to Anaheim in early December, but that didn't serve to snap the team out of it and the next couple of months saw the roster shaken up dramatically with the addition of J.T. Miller and subtractions of Filip Chytil, Ryan Lindgren, Jimmy Vesey and Reilly Smith.

The Rangers have found their way a bit recently and got themselves back into the mix for the wild card, but you wonder how much of this could have been avoided by being proactive without throwing veteran leaders out there as trade bait.

Vancouver Canucks

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Elias Pettersson

It's never boring in Vancouver, and it's even less boring when there's an executive like Jim Rutherford there to keep the trade wheels greased at all times. For the Canucks, though, a little peace and quiet could have helped.

They were battling from the moment the season started thanks to Thatcher Demko's injury and have also navigated through captain Quinn Hughes getting banged up. And while that was happening, they were also toying with the idea of trading J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson for what seemed like months.

Rumors emerged Vancouver listened on both players and were essentially hoping to get the best offer(s) possible and then decide what it wanted to do next. A lot of that talk came about because the rift between Miller and Pettersson was a poorly kept secret.

Ultimately, it was the Rangers and Miller who reunited, and Pettersson didn't go anywhere. The Canucks added Marcus Pettersson from Pittsburgh, but the team's overall play remained inconsistent.

Vancouver is now in a fight with Calgary, St. Louis and Utah for the second wild-card spot in the West.

Chicago Blackhawks

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Connor Bedard

It's hard to say a team that was going to be bad could have regrets when their season turned out to be bad, but here we are with the Blackhawks.

General manager Kyle Davidson's plan for the season was to surround Connor Bedard and his young teammates with veterans who have been there, done that and even won a Stanley Cup or two (or three in Patrick Maroon's case) and allow them to grow together to push Chicago up the standings and closer to the playoffs.

Instead, the veteran players haven't performed as well as hoped and Chicago is, yet again, in the running for the best odds to land the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft.

It's hard to say the Blackhawks have flatlined this year, but after seeing how well Bedard played last season, the hope was he was going to take another step himself, but this is where the plan went a little extra sideways.

The veterans didn't perform well enough to take the heat off the 19-year-old from opposing defenses and the net result is everyone's had a harder time this season.

Maybe it's growing pains, maybe it's a lesson learned for a relatively new GM...or maybe it's a worrying sign for the future.