The Biggest Regret For The NHL's Most Disappointing Teams
Believe it or not, the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs start exactly one month from today. The Wild Card race is still raging on and will come down to the wire with the most crowded playoff bubble we've seen in years.
The parity among the middle of the pack has held strong, which means there's even more separation between playoff hopefuls and draft lottery hopefuls this year. As we embark on the last month of the regular season, it's starting to sink in that many teams with high expectations are really going to miss the playoffs.
Let's process this realization together with the biggest regret for each of the NHL's most disappointing teams this season.
Florida Panthers: Injuries Derailing a 3-Peat
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It's hard to believe the Panthers were battling with the Golden Knights as Stanley Cup favorites at the beginning of this season. The back-to-back champs looked primed for a three-peat as GM Bill Zito successfully re-signed crucial free agents, and no major pieces left Florida.
The Panthers started the season already knowing star forward Matthew Tkachuk would be out for months after off-season surgery. Unfortunately, an unanticipated and somehow even worse blow was to come. One of the most respected players in the league, and first-line center Aleksander Barkov, sustained a torn MCL and ACL in the preseason that sidelined him for the entire regular season.
As if two of the most important forwards on the team missing that much time wasn't enough, a rotating slew of players at every position kept going down at inopportune times. There was Seth Jones on defense, penalty-killing beast Dmitry Kulikov for an extended period, you name it.
Between the amount and severity of these injuries and the exhaustion after back-to-back Cups, this season was just too much for the Panthers. They failed to gain any meaningful momentum throughout the season, and they're currently in second-to-last place in the East.
New Jersey Devils: Jack Hughes' Injury and Failure to Trade for Brother Quinn
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Maybe the biggest disappointment of all for the Devils this season wasn't just Jack Hughes' finger injury, but the fact that they'd already seen what Hughes' absence does to this team and still weren't properly prepared for the impact.
Alas, the team was doing well enough at the beginning of the season. It's not dramatic to say everything completely fell apart the moment Hughes left the lineup after hand surgery. Of course, you can't blame the collapse all on Hughes' absence, but the failure to score when he's out of the lineup has indicated a need for more secondary scoring for a while now.
On top of Hughes' injury, the Devils failed to win the sweepstakes for brother Quinn, and according to the Canucks, no team "came close" to what the Wild offered.
This season was a disappointment on multiple levels for the Devils, and there's some soul-searching to do in the offseason.
New York Rangers: Bad Season Leading to Artemi Panarin Trade
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In an ideal world, the Rangers' aggressive re-structuring last season would've panned out perfectly, and Artemi Panarin would've led them on one last playoff run before riding off into the free agency sunset.
In the real world, everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Rangers. When they were at a crossroads, stars Igor Shesterkin in net and Adam Fox on defense got injured at the same time, and the same weak defensive depth was exposed.
Trading Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba, and more to change the team's identity didn't work out as quickly as the Rangers would've hoped, so they had virtually no choice but to get something out of Panarin instead of letting him walk in free agency.
It looks like the Rangers are going to have to take the long route with an actual rebuild.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Not Re-Signing or Replacing Mitch Marner
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Look, the financial and cap situation in Toronto was not sustainable. But whose fault is that?
Many want to blame Mitch Marner, but in the end, it was the Maple Leafs brass who signed off on multiple extremely expensive contracts to keep the "core four" and more together.
Now we're seeing the repercussions of what happens when those deals come to an end, and you're forced to reckon with the gigantic holes these players create.
It's tough to say whether the Leafs should've actually re-signed Marner: They failed to achieve the ultimate goal while he was there; it would've been almost logistically impossible; and the vibes were souring as the need for a new direction was clear. But they should've at least had more of a plan to replace the 100+ points scorer, as the power play and scoring in general haven't recovered from his absence.
Vancouver Canucks: Bad Front-Office Decisions Leading to Quinn Hughes Trade
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The Quinn Hughes trade itself was the right decision, and the return was solid: forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, defenseman Zeev Buium, and a first-round pick. It's clear that it was time for the rebuild to start in Vancouver, and start it did.
But we didn't arrive here in a vacuum. We arrived here just a year and change removed from the Canucks having genuine playoff hope. The team has struggled mightily to find consistency for the past two seasons.
There's been player conflict drama that led to top scorer J.T. Miller getting traded, there's been contract drama that made things like Brock Boeser's extension harder than they had to be, and there's been injury drama with the ongoing injury to Thatcher Demko. As elite as a healthy Demko is, the Canucks set themselves up for failure by hoping for the best in that regard instead of preparing for the worst.
So, they were left with no choice this season but to initiate this rebuild with the best return for Hughes they could find. You just wonder if the situation would be entirely different had the front office been more proactive about four or five things.
Winnipeg Jets: A Letdown After Presidents' Trophy Season
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The Jets have been a fascinating case study of what happens when you have one of the most consistent goaltenders on the planet, a first line that competes with any in the league, a great defenseman, and then not much else going on.
It turns out Connor Hellebuyck in the net and an elite first line can have you cruising to the Presidents' Trophy in the regular season, only to keep falling short of a meaningful playoff run year after year.
The depth scoring and overall defense in Winnipeg haven't been good enough to contend for years, and yet little is done about it from offseason to offseason, other than a fan-placating decision like bringing in Jonathan Toews for the vibes.
The overall complexion of this team has been exposed, as it skipped regular-season dominance this year and went straight to the bottom. This could be a positive if it prompts GM Kevin Cheveldayoff to finally, meaningfully shake things up beyond the team's core.
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