Ranking the NHL's 8 Most Frustrated Fanbases for the 2026-27 Season

Sports fandom tends to be more about frustration than celebration. Only one team is winning a championship each season, and they are typically rare events that you get to experience maybe once every couple of decades. Anything more than that is insanely lucky. For the fanbases that do not get to experience that, there is going to be a wide range of disappointment.

Especially if it is a team that has not won, or been close to winning, for several years.

So let;s take a look at some of the most frustrated fanbases in the NHL right now.

It is not necessarily about just having a bad team this season. It is also about how long it has been since the team has had any success, how bleak the long-term outlook might be, and any other number of variables that can go into frustration.

If you're a team that's won a championship in the past 10 years or so, you don't really get to claim the most frustrated label. So, for as bad as things are for the Chicago Blackhawks are right now? You're not that far removed from winning multiple Stanley Cups. You are not going to be on top of the list. Same thing applies to the Pittsburgh Penguins. You might be bad now, but you were really, really good very recently. It is just your time to be bad. Sometimes it happens.

There are a lot of other fanbases that do not have that experience. Let's talk about them.

8. Chicago Blackhawks

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You can have SOME frustration if you are Blackhawks fan. But you do not get to go to the top of the list. You do not get to tell everybody how bad you have it.

At least not yet.

You can make the list, but that is it.

As bad as things have been lately, you are not that far removed from three Stanley Cups in six years. That still carries a lot of weight, and while it does not give the current organization a free pass, it does take some of the sting away for the fans.

Having said that, this organization is a mess, the rebuild looks failed, and they are still the worst team in hockey. They are worse now, in year four of Connor Bedard's career, than they were the year before they drafted him. Nobody seems to have any idea what they are doing here, and it might only get worse if they start making more desperation roster moves.

7. Winnipeg Jets

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The Jets have been reasonably successful in recent years, and are not that far removed from a Presidents' Trophy. But so much of their success has had a little bit of a smoke-and-mirrors element to it given how goalie dependent it has been and the lack of urgency from the front office.

They are not a free agent destination.

The general manager (Kevin Cheveldayoff) doesn't make trades unless he is forced into it.

The drafting and player development has not been great.

So much of the success that they have had has been the result of Connor Hellebuyck hiding a lot of their flaws and simply being one of the best goalies in the world for more than a decade. And even then, he had a habit of underperforming in the playoffs, and then forced his way out this this season, resulting in the trade to the New Jersey Devils. It just seems like his entire tenure here was mostly wasted, and now they have to pick up the pieces after he forced his way out and try to rebuild a team that is not largely goalie dependent. Do they have the right people in charge to do that? Recent history does not paint a promising picture for it.

6. Philadelphia Flyers

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Their surprising trip to the 2025-25 playoffs, and a series win over their arch-rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, was a nice temporary distraction from the mediocrity that has been the better part of the past 12 years.

And then they have followed it up with an absolutely brutal start to the 2026-27 season that has seen them play a painfully boring brand of hockey, take a step backwards in pretty much every aspect of the game, and watch as some of their young players (Matvei Michkov, Porter Martone) play through some truly puzzling usage.

Even worse, the front office basically told fans over the summer that a step backwards is something they were prepared for, while they seemed to have no other plan for the offseason except to hope that the Anaheim Ducks did not match their Leo Carlsson offer sheet (they did).

There are worse situations in the NHL. But that does not mean this is not a frustrating existence at the moment.

5. Buffalo Sabres

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The Sabres did make the playoffs a year ago, and they did win a round. So they have that going for them. In doing so, they were very close to a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals, and while they were a potential regression candidate this season (and still are) it is still a pretty good young team with a lot of talent.

But this is still a franchise that is just one year removed from a 14-year playoff drought, which is the longest playoff drought in NHL history.

I would also argue that there was plenty to be frustrated about coming into this season, even after last year's playoff appearance, because they did nothing to add to the roster and only subtracted from it in the short-term. While getting the No. 4 overall pick for defenseman Bowen Byram was a sensible move and great value, it still took away a top-four defenseman without another one coming in.

The 2025-26 season gave everybody a little excitement, and it gave ownership a temporary break from rightfully angry fan. But it is still a fanbase that has to be immensely frustrated with where the franchise has been over the past 15 years. The jury is still very much out on where it is going this season.

4. Calgary Flames

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It's been a long time since this franchise was consistently competitive, and it's probably going to be a bit longer before it is given the current state of its rebuild.

Even worse, it's just not a very entertaining team at the moment. Bad and boring is no way to go through an 84-game NHL season. The most entertaining thing about the Flames right now is whenever goalie Devin Cooley talks after games.

Let's also not lose sight of the fact that after acquiring Jonathan Huberdeau as part of the Matthew Tkachuk trade, he immediately ceased to be productive and will likely never play like a star ever again. Tkachuk, meanwhile, is one of the best players in the league and the focal point of a team that won back-to-back Stanley Cups.

3. Detroit Red Wings

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You do not have to be that old to have a memory of the Red Wings being a model NHL franchise and one of the most successful teams in pro sports. But time is starting to pass quickly, and the grace period that being a championship level team brings is beyond its shelf life.

It has been 18 years since their most recent Stanley Cup Final appearance and 19 years since their last championship. It has also been a literal decade since their last playoff appearance and 13 years since their last playoff series win.

The lack of results for more than a decade is a problem.

Where the problem gets worse is the entire organization looks like a rudderless ship with incompetent ownership and zero direction.

The Steve Yzerman era ended in July, but they do not have a full-time general manager to replace him.

Their captain and longest-tenured player, Dylan Larkin, wants a trade and is not playing for the team.

Simon Edvinsson, one of their best young players, remains unsigned as a restricted free agent and would reportedly prefer a trade as well.

The team is still decidedly average and looks to be on the verge of an 11th consecutive non-playoff season.

This is a mess. But not quite the biggest mess. You could be under the age of 20 and still probably have some memory of a reasonably successful team.

2. Vancouver Canucks

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The Canucks have made the playoffs just three times in the past 13 years, and are coming off a 2025-26 season that saw them finish with the worst record in the NHL by a substantial margin. It was during that season that they had trade one of the best players the franchise has ever seen in defenseman Quinn Hughes because they knew he was not going to re-sign there.

And then they lost the NHL Draft Lottery and fell down to the No. 3 overall pick, missing out on the chance to get both Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg.

Just absolutely brutal luck.

It leaves the Canucks as a franchise that has never won a Stanley Cup, and also never picked first in the NHL Draft.

If nothing else, maybe they can change the latter part this year because they are, once again, on track to finish with the worst record in the NHL with just three wins in their first 20 games.

It's just been a directionless team for more than a decade now, and now that they are clearly rebuilding it looks like it is going to take a long time to get back to respectability.

At least this particular version doesn't have the drama that followed the 2024-25 team around with the beef between J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson, while the latter saw all of his offensive creativity and skill seemingly disappear under former head coach Rick Tocchet. It has been a bad team. It has been a dysfunctional team. It has been a directionless team. It has been everything you do not want a professional sports franchise to be.

1. Columbus Blue Jackets

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There might not be a more underrated fanbase in the NHL than the one that resides in Columbus.

These people have been given a non-stop circus, and they still do a reasonably good job filling their building and creating a strong atmosphere.

They deserve better than what they have been given by this franchise.

Just think about everything this team has put its fans through since entering the league, and especially recently.

• This is their 26th season in the NHL.
• They have never won a Stanley Cup.
• They have never appeared in a Stanley Cup Final.
• They have never won the Presidents' Trophy.
• They have never won their division.
• They have never finished higher than third place(!!) in their division.
• They have made the playoffs just six times in their first 25 years.
• They have made it through to the second round just one time.
• They have not made the playoffs in six years, and could be working on a seventh-consecutive season on the outside.
• They are on their sixth different head coach since the start of the 2020-21 season, including the embarrassing Mike Babcock failure.
• They missed playoffs a year ago with an almost impossible collapse over the final weeks of the regular season.
• They have consistently been ditched by high-profile players, including this season when Kirill Marchenko made it clear he would not re-sign there and ended up getting traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
• Their best player, and the reigning Norris Trophy winner Zach Werenski, has been the subject of rumors regarding his long-term future.
• As if all of that is not enough, they are off to one of the worst starts in the league this season.

Other than all of that, everything here is great.

If you are still loyal through all of that, you are a real one. And also probably incredibly frustrated.