Buy or Sell Every NHL Team That Missed the Playoffs Improving in the 2025-26 Season
It's the dog days of summer. But the B/R hockey team is still focused on ice.
Pucks will drop on the NHL's preseason schedule in just 40 days and the opening trio of regular-season games—hosted in Florida, New York and Los Angeles—will be underway in only 57, which means it's high time to start making predictions.
We focused on the teams that missed the playoffs of the 32-team league, assessing the 16 teams that'd missed out on the postseason tournament.
A buy/sell assessment was attached to each of the 16 and the chances that they'll improve their performance from the 2024-25 season into 2025-26.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought in the app comments.
New York Islanders: Buy
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The Islanders would typically be mired in the meh portion of the NHL discussion: Not good enough to make the playoffs and not bad enough to get a franchise-changing draft pick. But after entering the lottery with the 10th-best chance to get a shot at Matthew Schaefer, their number was called and they reeled in the big fish.
It won't be easy, even with Schaefer, to make up the nine-point gap that separated them from the postseason, but the vibe is that there's enough in the cupboard to tick up from the 82 points they compiled in 2024-25.
San Jose Sharks: Buy
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The Sharks have missed the playoffs for six straight seasons and sank to the bottom of the NHL barrel in 2024-25, finishing nine points behind the 31st-ranked Chicago Blackhawks with just 52 points. But it's not all bad.
A stockpile of recent picks that included two rookies from last season, Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, was supplemented by OHL forward Michael Misa at No. 2 overall. So the offense is on the rise. Goaltending will be the linchpin, though, and the chances for improvement truly hinge on whether Alex Nedeljkovic, acquired from Pittsburgh for a 2028 pick, can steady the goal crease.
Chicago Blackhawks: Sell
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There's ample reason to like Connor Bedard. And we also like Anton Frondell, who'd been ranked by Central Scouting before the draft as the No. 1 international skater and was available for the Blackhawks at No. 3 overall.
But elsewhere? Not so much. Chicago's attempt to add talent around Bedard in 2024-25 fell flat and the pipeline, while hardly empty, probably won't produce enough in the way of results to better the 61 points they compiled.
Utah Mammoth: Buy
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This one ought to be the first easy one on the list. The Mammoth were already a 38-win, 89-point team in a loaded Western Conference last season and they'll return in 2025-26 chock full of burgeoning talent—given the 82 goals they got in 2024-25 from the trio of Clayton Keller (27 years old), Logan Cooley (21) and Dylan Guenther (22).
Add in the expected production of trade acquisition JJ Peterka (27 goals with Buffalo last season) and the veteran presence of free-agent signees Nate Schmidt and Brandon Tanev and it's less a question of will they improve and more about which Western playoff holdover they'll displace next spring.
Nashville Predators: Buy
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We're not at all suggesting that the Predators will rise from 30th overall to a Stanley Cup parade. But it can't be as bad as 2024-25, can it?
Nashville was a summertime winner heading into last season after a flurry of free-agent activity, then started the schedule in a tailspin and never turned things around while slogging to just 30 wins. Nevertheless, the mere presence of Steven Stamkos, Juuse Saros, Filip Forsberg and others has to be worth at least a slight uptick, no?
Philadelphia Flyers: Buy
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You can discuss personnel all you'd like. And with another season of 2023 pick Matvei Michkov and the arrival of Trevor Zegras from Anaheim, there's at least something to be optimistic about. But we're making this one all about the coach.
There may be no more typical Flyer than Rick Tocchet, who played eight seasons in Philadelphia and left an offer on the table to continue to coach in Vancouver—where he won the Jack Adams Trophy in 2024—to make himself available to coach where he'd played. Can he provide a bounce from 76 points? We say yes.
Boston Bruins: Sell
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It's hard to remember a steeper freefall than the one experienced lately by the Bruins, who racked up a league-leading 65 wins and 135 points in 2022-23 before tumbling to 33 wins and 76 points (tied for 27th overall) last season.
The problem is, it doesn't seem likely to reverse anytime soon. David Pastrnak is a bona fide star and Charlie McAvoy has been stellar when healthy, but they're not enough to stop the bleeding and Viktor Arvidsson isn't the kind of trade that will likely to be a game-changer.
Seattle Kraken: Sell
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The 2022-23 season was a wonderful time in Seattle, but the fact that the Kraken haven't since come close to replicating the 100 points and the playoff series win has to be frustrating, too. Because what's happened since seems to be the reality.
No one on the roster produced more than 61 points across 82 games while the team stumbled to just 35 wins in 2024-25, and the lack of legitimate, game-changing talent probably dooms them to the lower tier of both the Western Conference and the league as a whole.
Buffalo Sabres: Buy
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It's hard to feel optimistic about the Sabres these days. The franchise has missed the playoffs for 14 straight seasons, and, in spite of the talent of Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin, among others, the typical takeaways when assessing the organization are words like "disaster," "failure" and "not a good development environment."
But we're going to buck the trend here. Thompson will score goals. Dahlin will produce from the blue line. And the presence of solid support players like Josh Norris, Alex Tuch, and Josh Doan makes the idea of a boost from 79 points—if not a full-on run to a low-rung playoff spot—a solid bet.
Anaheim Ducks: Buy
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Like the Flyers before them, we'll make this one about the coach. The Ducks already boasted one of the league's most coveted prospect pools and added street cred in Chris Kreider (trade) and Mikael Granlund (free agent), but it's the arrival of Joel Quenneville, a three-time Cup winner behind the bench, that'll help continue the recent spike from 58 points in 2022-23 to 80 in 2024-25.
He's led teams to the playoffs 20 times in 22 seasons, triggering the sort of competitive turnarounds in Colorado, St. Louis, Chicago and Florida that indicate a similar rise in southern California ought to be expected, too.
Pittsburgh Penguins: Sell
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This isn't the way that Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were supposed to make their stretch runs, is it? The Penguins have dipped from 103 points in 2021-22 to 91, 88 and 80 while missing the playoffs three times, largely because of a black hole in the goal crease that left them 29th in the league with a 3.50 goals-against average in 2024-25.
Matt Dumba has arrived on the blue line via trade from Dallas and Arturs Silovs in the net from Vancouver, but it's unlikely that a 31-year-old defenseman and a 24-year-old goalie with 18 career starts are the answers to Pittsburgh fan prayers.
New York Rangers: Buy
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The story in New York is similar to the one up the road in Boston, thanks to the Rangers' precipitous dive from 114 points and a Presidents Trophy win in 2023-24 to the 85 points that yielded a playoff miss in 2024-25.
But the future seems a bit less gloomy in midtown Manhattan, where Cup-winning coach Mike Sullivan arrives to replace Cup winner Peter Laviolette and inherits a far better goaltending situation thanks to the presence of Igor Shesterkin. So long as Shesterkin is healthy and in form, it can't get as bad on Broadway.
Detroit Red Wings: Sell
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Welcome to the Steve Yzerman dissection, 2025 edition. The GM's "Yzerplan" hasn't paid off in Detroit the way it did in Tampa Bay, given a now nine-year run of missed playoffs—most recently a five-point below-the-cutline finish in 2024-25.
John Gibson arrives via trade from Anaheim to shore up a goaltending group that was 19th best with a 3.16 goals-against average, but a boost from the 2.87 goals-per-game offense that was 22nd seems more imperative given the presence of no point-per-game players. Until that happens, count us out.
Columbus Blue Jackets: Buy
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The Blue Jackets were the nearest playoff miss in the Eastern Conference, falling short by just two points after winning 40 games and somehow enduring the nightmare loss of Johnny Gaudreau. So there's plenty of reason to be excited now.
Columbus is among the league's youngest teams, has a Norris-quality defenseman in Zach Werenski, a pair of 30-goal scorers in Kirill Marchenko and Adam Fantilli, and a goalie in Jet Greaves who won his last five starts in 2024-25 while allowing just four goals. So, until proven otherwise, it's go-time in Middle Ohio.
Vancouver Canucks: Sell
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No team in the NHL was more internally dysfunctional in 2024-25 than the Vancouver Canucks, with the locker room tumult ultimately leading to a trade that sent J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers for a fresh start.
The Canucks get one, too, with the promotion of Adam Foote to head coach, and it'll be up to him to mend the culture and compete in the Western Conference among several other non-playoff teams that seem primed for improvement. It's a big ask for a first-time bench boss, so the initial vibe here is a no.
Calgary Flames: Sell
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If you sat here last summer figuring the Flames for a 15-point spike in the standings, take a bow. Calgary was a consistent surprise throughout a 2024-25 season that ended with 96 points and a tiebreaker loss to the St. Louis Blues for the final Western playoff berth.
Twenty-two-year-old winger Matt Coronato (24 goals) was inked to a long-term deal in the spring and goalie Dustin Wolf (.910 save percentage) was a Calder Trophy finalist, which suggests the future in southern Alberta seems bright. But does it guarantee a rise closer to 100 points in a rugged West? We'll say no.
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