Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
The NHL is halfway through the 2024-25 regular season. That means it’s a great time to focus on the league’s biggest shocks so far.
The teams below all have stumbled horribly, more or less sinking their Stanley Cup playoff chances and letting down their respective passionate fan bases.
New York Rangers
Full disclosure – we thought the Rangers would be one of the more dominant NHL teams this season. They have one of the best goaltenders on the planet in Igor Shesterkin, a Norris Trophy winner in Adam Fox and a star forward in Artemi Panarin.
But somehow, the Rangers have been less than the sum of their parts, and they’ve fallen to 14th place in the Eastern Conference and 26th place in the NHL, with a ghastly 18-20-2 record.
When the Rangers get a lead, they seem to do a decent job holding it. They’re 12-2-1 when leading after the first period and 16-1-0 when leading after the second. But when they trail, they haven’t had it in them to catch up. They’re 1-13-0 when trailing after the first and are one of four teams to not win a game when trailing after the second, going 0-17-1. Their five comeback wins are only when trailing by one goal, and it’s tied for the fourth-fewest in the NHL.
In sum, they’re a gigantic letdown. Unless they have a miraculous turnaround, they’re going to go from winning the Presidents’ Trophy last year to failing to make the post-season this year. That is as stunning and shocking as anything we’ve seen in recent memory, and some people (namely, GM Chris Drury and coach Peter Laviolette) should be held accountable for it – if not by Rangers ownership, then certainly, by Rangers fans and media types.
The bitter taste in their fans’ mouths will not go away anytime soon. The Rangers need an overhaul, and while they’re not going to trade Fox, Shesterkin and Panarin, just about anyone else on the roster should be on the table as a potential trade piece. They can’t allow this performance to be excusable, and that means major change should be coming.
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Buffalo Sabres
As we’ve said before, the Sabres entered this season in full “show, don’t tell” mode, as they’ve been disappointing their customers by missing the playoffs every year since 2011-12. And what Buffalo has shown us through 41 games this season is that they’re the worst team…