Edmonton: At 7-15-5, the Oilers are easily the worst team in the entire National Hockey League, and therefore belong atop this list. In a similar vein to the Washington Redskins of the NFL, it seems that the Oilers are completely and embarrassingly incapable of fostering the ridiculous amount of talent they have.
Guys like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Nail Yakupov are – at least on paper – far too good for this team to e as disastrously bad as they have been this year and last year, and the year before that…and for many, many years. They recently ended an 11-game losing streak with a win over San Jose, but it was also happened to be their first of the season against a Western Conference team. With unwanted stats like that, second-year head coach Dallas Eakins is well on track to becoming the second coach fired this season.
Ottawa: The Senators are so bad that they ensured their coach, Paul McLean, was the first to be fired. I guess an 11-11-5 record will do that to a guy. The crazy thing is that McLean was entering the first of a three-year contract extension. It’s pretty early for a head coach to get canned. You can still turn things around at this end of the season, and my money’s on McLean’s firing being a way of getting the Senators to turn up and actually play good hockey.
Columbus: I thought things were looking up in C-Bus. After all, the Blue Jackets played Pittsburgh hard in the first round of last year’s playoffs and seemed primed to take a bigger step this year, perhaps in the form of a playoff series victory. Instead, they’ve regressed and are the worst team in the East, even managing to lose to a pretty bad Edmonton Oilers squad a few weeks ago. Losing to the Oilers is a bad, bad sign.
Alexander Semin: The former Washington Capitals star has one goal in 21 games this year, and is one of the standout worst performers on a bad Carolina Hurricanes team.
Colorado: After a great start to Patrick Roy’s coaching career, which ended with a playoff appearance, the wheels appear to have fallen off the Avalanche. They sit at 9-12-6 and that’s pretty much an unforgiveable record for a team with the talent the Avs can lay claim to: Tyson Barrie, Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Daniel Briere and Nathan MacKinnon.
Marian Gaborik: The Kings sniper has just eight goals so far, and is so far from his 2013-14 Stanley Cup Playoff form it isn’t even funny. Of course, we all remark about Gaborik’s inconsistency – it plagued him in Minnesota and New York and Columbus, too – but when he turns it on, he really turns it on. As we all saw last spring. Still, for a guy of his calibre, 4 goals and 4 assists in 15 games isn’t great. Roy’s seat isn’t hot by any stretch of the imagination, but it might get a little warm if the Avs don’t improve between now and April.
Dallas: The Stars made a stack of off-season acquisitions and appeared poised to make a serious run in the Western Conference…except that the Stars red-hot offense can’t score as many goals as it’s porous defense is giving up. And the rate at which Tyler Seguin is potting goals, that’s really saying something. The Stars are 10-12-5 and Lindy Ruff’s first season in Dallas isn’t going to plan. At this stage, yes, Dallas can theoretically still make the playoffs, but they’ll have to enjoy a pretty major turnaround defensively pretty quickly
Mike Smith: The Arizona Coyotes goalie has been pretty bad so far this year (and isn’t alone, for his offsider, Devan Dubnyk could easily make this list, too), amassing a save percentage of just .890 and a Goals Allowed Average of 3.27. That drops him into the lower tier of NHL goalies, and a team is only as good as the guy between the nets. Figures that the Coyotes aren’t real good, sitting at 10-15-3, and second-last in the West.
Buffalo: The Sabres, at 9-16-2 and 20 points, are in the midst of a slow rebuilding phase, and I have a bad feeling there’ll be a lot more pain before there’s any gain. Playoff appearances are almost a memory, as are the years of service from Ryan Miller, now in Vancouver and doing pretty well for himself. They are last in the league for goals scored (1.6 per game) and give up 3.1, fifth worst in the league. Bad numbers for a troubled franchise. Unfortunately for the Sabres, the only light at the end of the tunnel right now is an oncoming train.
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