8 Disappointing NHL Teams from the 2023-24 Season

The flipside of watching all the great games during the Stanley Cup playoffs is thinking about the teams many of us thought would be there before the NHL season started or even midway through the campaign.

The weight of expectation is heavy, and the expiry of hope is a humbling experience. For eight particular teams, it hits a bit harder than it does for others that are busy plotting out their draft boards.

We're going to talk about those teams that left their fanbase wanting and what they're going to do to make up for it next season. Some teams have already been busy adjusting their setup, while others still have big decisions to come.

Let's dig deep on the sadness of not living up to the hype in the NHL.

After watching the season Sidney Crosby had for the Pittsburgh Penguins this season, many of us were hoping they'd make the playoffs to see him shine again in the brightest spotlight.

The Penguins missed out on the playoffs by one point last year and with Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson not getting any younger, missing the postseason again means time is running out for this team.

There's no doubt Pittsburgh is in a tough spot with the salary cap, legacy players who aren't going anywhere else at this point of their careers and the need to get younger and stay competitive.

Missing out on the postseason is a crusher, and general manager Kyle Dubas has a tall task ahead of him to get all of that turned around in a way that won't instigate a full-on rebuild.

The Pens do have some prospects, but it will be another year or two before they're able to be key contributors in the NHL.

Perhaps the bar was set too high this season for the Seattle Kraken.

After putting up 100 points a year ago and advancing to the second round of the playoffs, the hope was they'd continue along that trajectory and perhaps have some Vegas Golden Knights-like magic going for them.

It wasn't meant to be, though, as they put up 81 points and missed the playoffs for the second time in their three seasons. But they're a new team that didn't quite have everyone in the league gift them great players to build around like Vegas did.

It was a disappointment, for sure, and losing 19 points off last season's record is definitely not a good thing, but all the highs their players hit a year ago saw them regress this season. But they may have found out Joey Daccord is their No. 1 goalie after a superb year.

The Kraken have got a malleable roster, and general manager Ron Francis will have a lot of options on how to improve it. All is definitely not lost in Seattle.

The Detroit Red Wings were so close to getting back to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, but their late-season inconsistency ultimately cost them their shot.

As thrilling as their final few games were with stirring comebacks against the Canadiens, they relinquished control of their destiny amid a brutal losing streak at the start of March and back-to-back losses to Washington and Pittsburgh.

They took a risk signing Patrick Kane, and it paid off because the 35-year-old showed a lot of glimpses of the old offensive star he was before the hip surgery. But missing the playoffs might have put a damper on his desire to stay in Detroit next season.

GM Steve Yzerman's plan to get back to the playoffs took a tough blow this year, but how he adjusts the roster this offseason will be fascinating to watch because he'll have the leeway to do it from the club's ownership.

It just never seemed to be in the cards for the Minnesota Wild this season.

Last season, they were an exciting playoff team, and they seemed primed and ready to get right back at it again this year with Marc-André Fleury and Filip Gustavsson in goal.

Instead, the goaltending struggled out of the gate. There were injuries all over the lineup and limited options to call upon from the AHL to help put a tourniquet on the bleeding. Even though their second half of the season saw them rally to get back close to the playoff hunt, they fell short of the finish line in the end.

However, all is not lost.

Brock Faber became a rookie star on defense, and Marco Rossi flourished in his first full NHL season up front. Kirill Kaprizov was brilliant once again, and after John Hynes replaced Dean Evason as head coach in midseason, Matt Boldy found his way offensively again.

A healthy Wild team is a good one, and they should be back in the mix in the Central next season.

Perhaps no other team in the NHL had as many fans of other clubs rooting for them the way the Buffalo Sabres did. After all, they haven't made the playoffs since 2011 and the way they played last year excited almost everyone.

Unfortunately, things changed this season and not in a positive way. Goals were harder to come by, injuries to key players such as Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch nagged at them while Jack Quinn was cursed by two brutal injuries that limited him to 27 games this season.

The goals dried up, the power play stunk, and despite making strides on defense and finding out Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is their No. 1 goalie, they finished with 84 points, seven fewer than a year ago, and it cost Don Granato his job.

Players said they wanted a coach who would hold everyone accountable and be tougher on them in the process, and they got their wish because GM Kevyn Adams brought back Lindy Ruff.

It will be fascinating to see how all of this plays out next season.

No one expected the Flyers to be in a playoff spot at all this season. Everyone expected this rebuilding team to be one of the teams aiming to have great odds in the NHL draft lottery.

Instead, coach John Tortorella got them to commit to playing things his way. They won games with an endless supply of effort and tenacity for most of the season and held down a playoff spot for, seemingly, three-quarters of the year.

However, they ran out of gas in the second half and slipped out of the playoff picture completely. The bittersweet nature of missing out on the postseason but still landing in the lottery to help the rebuild is real, but the experience of the playoff race many of their young players got should help them in the years to come.

The question now is whether they'll be able to recreate what they did this season and make it last all year. As long as Tortorella is there, don't count on him letting anything slip under his watch.

Ottawa was another team whose real goal this season was to make it to the playoffs. Along with Detroit and Buffalo in the Atlantic Division, it was going to be a fight...at least we thought it would be.

However, after the franchise was sold, GM Pierre Dorion and coach DJ Smith were replaced by Steve Staios and Jacques Martin, respectively, it felt almost like a lost season because of all that turnover.

It's not over yet, though. Staios is looking for a permanent coach and who they select will tell us a lot about their aims. The roster needs tweaking, particularly on defense. And after hearing how noncommittal defenseman Jakob Chychrun was when asked about signing an extension at the end of the season, there might be another big trade on the horizon.

The Senators have some good players, but they need a better supporting cast and better health. For guys like Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stützle, Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson, a second wave of star players would really help them flourish.

Ottawa could stand to improve things in goal, too, but the five-year contract Joonas Korpisalo got last summer already doesn't look great.

After putting up 112 points a year ago, the Devils were poised to be one of the top Stanley Cup challengers in the Eastern Conference.

But after seeing defensemen Ryan Graves and Damon Severson go elsewhere over the summer and losing Dougie Hamilton for the season in November, their defense corps became very young very quickly. That had an effect on their goaltending as well, although Vitek Vanecek's form didn't help much, either.

Jack Hughes missed 20 games with injury, Timo Meier slumped for half the season, and the Devils' overall struggles cost Lindy Ruff his job. With Travis Green in as the interim coach and a full swap of goalies at the trade deadline, the Devils crept close to the playoff picture but fell short.

The pieces are in place in New Jersey and after Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec got the trial-by-fire treatment on defense, perhaps it will be able to fly back up the standings again...as long as general manager Tom Fitzgerald does something about its goaltending for real this summer.

Whether it's Green who gets the coaching job or someone else, the Devils will be in a good spot for an instant turnaround.