As we count down to the conference finals, and work out which two teams will battle for Stanley Cup glory, I’ve cast my eye back over the regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs to come up with some of my biggest disappointments of the season:
Nashville: The Predators enjoyed a scintillating regular season during Peter Laviolette’s first season in Tennessee, and seemed primed for a deep playoff run. They started well, leading scoring three goals on Chicago in the first period of the first game, but the wheels fell off pretty quickly after that, and the Preds were ousted 4-2 by the ‘Hawks, who generally had things their own way.
What helped the Predators finish as second seed in the cutthroat Central Division – impeccable goaltending, strong defence and opportunistic scoring - deserted them in the playoffs. Yes, the Blackhawks are very good, but I expected more from the Preds, based on the quality of their regular season, hence why they appear atop this list.
Boston: Far too much talent on this Boston squad to have missed the playoffs. By any measure, 2014-15 was a subpar season from a Bruins outfit used to being at or near the top of the East. It started ominously, with Boston forced to trade star defenceman Johnny Boychuck to the New York Islanders due to salary cap issues, and losing their other star d-man, Zdeno Chara to injury for a stack of games didn’t help, either.
For the most part, this year’s Bruins looked like poor imitations of their former selves, and apparently the powers-that-be in Boston agreed with my assessment, for they wasted little jettisoning Peter Chiarelli, their long-standing general manager after the regular season, and with a new hockey boss coming in, there’s no guarantee that Stanley Cup-winning coach Claude Julien will keep his job.
Washington: Once more in this modern Ovechkin/Backstrom era, the Capitals have failed to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals, and that has been a long-standing knock on the franchise. This time, the DC squad squandering a 3-1 series lead over the New York Rangers, losing in overtime of a series-deciding seventh game.
Realistically, the Caps were about a minute and a half away from winning 4-1 in New York City, but a Derek Stepan goal tied the game, and a few minutes into overtime, a Ryan McDonagh blast gave the Rangers what we now know was a momentum-swinging victory that changed the trajectory of the series. Boy, did Washington have their chances to close it out. The last few minutes of Game 5 and those key moments in the final two games will haunt the Caps all summer.
Edmonton: Perennial inhabitants of this list, the Oilers are a head-scratching case. For all the talent they have on their roster – and there’s plenty of it, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall – they simply cannot convert it into regular season success.
At this point, and as the Oilers get ready to welcome projected top pick Connor McDavid to the club by way of using their first overall draft pick, there are few things that the Oilers haven’t changed in order to try and spark the fortunes of a club that were virtually unstoppable in the 1980s, and nothing seems to work. The playoffs like a lifetime away.
I can’t remember an NHL franchise that routinely squanders talent from the upper reaches of the draft. It must be incredibly frustrating for loyal Edmonton fans.
Dallas: The Stars seem to routinely offer so much leading into the season and generally don’t back up words with actions once the puck drops. Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn led the way for a club that didn’t have trouble scoring.
No, the real issue was at the other end of the ice, where goalie Kari Lehtonen had a below-par season. In the end, the Stars – including disappointing free agency pickup Ales Hemsky – just couldn’t score more goals than Lehtonen was letting in, and may struggle to reach the playoffs next year, unless there are major improvements from a lot of guys, particularly Hemsky, Lehtonen and the defence.
Los Angeles: Honestly, after the Kings came out and beat San Jose convincingly in the Outdoor Series game at Levis Stadium in San Francisco, I – and a lot of others – figured that the defending Stanley Cup champions were going to do their usual trick, and go on a spectacular run through the playoffs.
Despite the hole left by Slava Voynov, suspended due to off-ice domestic violence issues, on the defensive side, the rest of the cast who had taken the Kings to two recent Cup titles were getting hot at what seemed the right time.
Alas, it wasn't enough. The Kings left their run too late, and became the first team since the Carolina Hurricanes in 2007-07 to not qualify for the playoffs a year after hoisting Lord Stanley. It’s not a list you want to be on. Rumours surfaced that coach Darryl Sutter, a big part of the reason the Kings have had so much recent success, had lost the locker room, and although it was denied publically, those rumours generally don’t start out of nothing. Next season will be mighty interesting.
Toronto: Canada’s most-loved franchise is going through a hellish few years, and it doesn’t seem like there’ll be any respite for a Leafs team that’s traded away a few big names already and may well part with stars Phil Kessel (scorer of 61 points this season, easily the most on the team) and defenceman/captain Dion Phaneuf before the off-season is out.
There’s been dysfunction at every level of the Leafs organisation lately. Remember the ridiculous deal given to David Clarkson off the back of one good season? $36.5 million over seven years, and it backfired spectacularly.
It’s going to take a herculean effort to rebuild this proud franchise, and basically it’ll have to happen pretty much from the ground up over the course of a few years, and even if Toronto somehow manage to land free-agent coach Mike Babcock, whose success with Detroit is well known throughout the hockey world, there’s still a matter of roster dead weights and a lack of talent that may prove a bridge too far even for someone of Babcock’s talent. The Leafs’ next coaching hire will be interesting, to say the least.
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