It’s halfway through the NHL’s regular season, and some great surprises are emerging around the league. But on the other side of the spectrum, there are also some big disappointments emerging, too.
From underwhelming players to special teams to goaltending and more, there are a lot of unexpected developments we heard about this week when The Athletic asked its NHL staff for their biggest disappointments as many teams have either crossed or are close to the 41-game mark.
Here’s one disappointment for each team in the first half.
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Trevor Zegras failing to thrive: For the second straight season, Zegras has lost a chunk of time as he recovers from knee surgery that was required after he tore his right meniscus on Dec. 4 against Vegas. Thursday’s game in St. Louis was the 17th straight he’s missed after suiting up only 31 times in 2023-24 due to two separate injuries. These losses of significant playing time should be factored into the cratered offensive production he’s had in these two years, but it also reflects some on Greg Cronin’s mission to have the creative talent play a more responsible 200-foot game. Zegras does appear to be closing in on a return, perhaps in another week or two. A 30th-ranked power play through Thursday can use his vision and passing. — Eric Stephens
Jeremy Swayman as a No. 1 goalie: Swayman was expected to start slowly because of the pressure of adjusting to being a full-time No. 1 following Linus Ullmark’s trade. His issues were compounded by missing all of training camp while negotiating his contract. He should have had enough time to catch up. But Swayman has yet to match his play from last year’s playoffs, which helped earn him his $66 million contract. — Fluto Shinzawa
Dylan Cozens and Jack Quinn: Signed to a long-term deal with a $7.1 million cap hit, Cozens was supposed to be a bona fide No. 2 center. Instead, he’s on pace for 41 points and is minus-13. He has two power-play points despite the fifth most power-play ice time on the team. He and Jack Quinn, who has 16 points and has been a healthy scratch at times, were supposed to take a step and solidify Buffalo’s secondary scoring. That hasn’t happened. — Matthew Fairburn
Lack of goal scoring: If the Flames want to make the playoffs, they’ll need a goal-scoring outburst. Because ranking in the league’s bottom five as of Thursday in goals doesn’t help. Only three Flames players have goal tallies in double digits: Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri and Connor Zary. If the Flames decide this core is worth pushing toward the postseason, they’ll need a goal scorer of some sort. — Julian McKenzie
Five-on-five play: No team Corsis harder than the Hurricanes, and that’s again true this season. Carolina leads the league in possession by a wide margin, just as it has the previous two seasons. Yet underlying numbers success hasn’t translated into a wide margin on the score sheet, with the Hurricanes scoring just five more goals (91) than they’ve allowed (86) through 42 games at five-on-five. Much of that rests on Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov, who have totaled seven five-on-five goals (Svechnikov has just two), and their ability to convert chances will be key in the second half. — Cory Lavalette
It’s unlikely Philipp Kurashev will remain with the Blackhawks after this season. (Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)
Philipp Kurashev: The Blackhawks were hopeful Kurashev would take that next step this season after breaking out for 54 points and becoming a consistent linemate for Connor Bedard last season. Kurashev hasn’t come close to that. He has five points through 30 games and has been a healthy scratch under two coaches this season. It’s unlikely he will remain with the organization after the season. — Scott Powers
Special teams: Colorado’s perennial top-five power play hasn’t looked like itself this season, ranking 17th in the league at 22 percent through Thursday. What’s even more concerning is the underlying numbers suggest that’s where the power play belongs. The Avalanche rank 15th in expected goals per 60 minutes and 17th in high-danger chances with the man advantage, so this isn’t just the result of a cold shooting streak. The penalty kill also ranks in the bottom half of the league with only a 78.4 percent kill rate. Both of those special teams will need to improve in the second half of the season, and Colorado certainly has the personnel to make that happen — especially on the power play. — Jesse Granger
Damon Severson: The Blue Jackets thought they were adding a steady veteran to their defensive corps two summers ago when they agreed to a sign-and-trade deal with New Jersey for the veteran blueliner. But Severson hasn’t been steady at all. After struggling in his first season in Columbus, Severson has again hit a rough patch in Year 2. He’s been a healthy scratch three times in the last eight games, with more possibly on the way. Severson’s big issue has been turning pucks over in his own end and struggling to adapt to coach Dean Evason’s seemingly defenseman-friendly system. — Aaron Portzline
Mavrik Bourque: After winning the AHL scoring title and MVP last season, Bourque seemed poised to step right in and be a major contributor for the Stars, but he’s mustered just three goals in 35 games. There’s nothing terribly unusual or concerning about a rookie experiencing growing pains in his first NHL campaign, but Bourque isn’t 18 or 19, he’s 23 years old, and Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven wrecked the curve a bit with how they were instant NHL successes. — Mark Lazerus
Vladimir Tarasenko: Tarasenko was supposed to be the big offensive addition this past offseason, but it just hasn’t worked out that way. He was never going to be able to replace all the offense the Red Wings lost amid a salary cap crunch, but through the first 40 games, he has just four goals and 14 points. He’s mostly playing on Detroit’s third line, and for a player with a cap hit of $4.75 million (for another season, too) the impact just hasn’t been enough. What’s more concerning: Even with those numbers, he’s still seventh in scoring among Red Wings forwards. — Max Bultman
Jeff Skinner’s fit: This is not how things were expected to go for Skinner when the Oilers signed him on July 1. He’s been all but stapled to the bottom six since the first homestand of the season amid being unable to establish any chemistry with Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. He has just seven goals and 15 points in 40 games. The low point was getting scratched on Dec. 29. The good news is Skinner has played much better since then and appears on the right path toward moving up the lineup. — Daniel Nugent-Bowman
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The roller-coaster ride: Since a seven-game winning streak that ended on Nov. 9, the Panthers have gone 14-12-1 with a goal differential of zero. Given their track record, there’s no reason to sound the alarm — but still, that’s a fairly long run of up-and-down play. It’s not just a run of poor goaltending, though Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight could be better. Energy conservation? Perhaps. — Sean Gentille
An inefficient power play: If one were to nitpick, they could focus on Phillip Danault having only three goals or Trevor Moore suffering a big drop-off after erupting for 31 goals last season. But it’s been a power play that’s ranked 28th and converting at just 16 percent through Thursday after being 11th last season and converting at a 22.6 percent rate. Kevin Fiala might be among the disappointments here as he has just 11 power-play points compared to 30 last season and 24 the year before. Shockingly, Adrian Kempe only has two goals on the man advantage. It’s not so easy replacing the sidelined Drew Doughty as the PP1 quarterback. — Eric Stephens
The penalty kill: So much was made in the offseason of repairing the penalty kill that plagued them last season and in the 2022 playoffs against Dallas. Instead, they’re on par with or even worse than 2023-24. Other than one 16-kill run over five games in November and a recent strong game at Carolina (4-for-4), the kill has been a disaster all season. It ranks 29th at 71.6 percent and they’ve given up at least one power-play goal in 24 of 42 games. The only saving grace is that the Wild have been short-handed the fifth-fewest times in the NHL (102). — Michael Russo
Juraj Slafkovský has been performing below expectations this season. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
Juraj Slafkovský’s slow start: Slafkovský had a difficult start to last season, his second in the NHL, but from Dec. 16 to the end of last season, he had 43 points in 53 games. He signed an 8-year, $60.8 million contract extension over the summer, and that, coupled with his strong second half last season, set the bar extremely high this year. And he has not met that bar. Slafkovský has 22 points in 37 games, but more than the production, he simply has not looked nearly as impactful as he did over the last 50-odd games of last season. Luckily for him, the team has been winning without him leaving much of a mark, and he still has time to figure it out. — Arpon Basu
Gustav Nyquist: It’s probably not fair to isolate Nyquist, on a team with so many coming up short of expectations. But he is on pace for 34 points after his 75-point season of 2023-24, which was a huge part of the Preds making the playoffs and having an elite top line. That was the best of his career by a 21-point margin, by the way. Still, the Preds were hoping the 35-year-old could come close to last season’s performance. — Joe Rexrode
Šimon Nemec’s season: After showing promise as a rookie in 2023-24, Nemec — the No. 2 draft pick in 2022 — has spent most of this season in the minors. The Devils beefed up their blue line over the summer, and Nemec got sent down once they were healthy. He has 11 points in 20 games for AHL Utica. There’s not necessarily a reason for long-term concern, but he has also not taken a jump enough to stand out among a crowded group of defensemen. — Peter Baugh
Special teams: We’ve said it an awful lot around here: No NHL team has ever been as bad as the Isles have on special teams through the first half. Both power play and penalty kill are dead last, the 64.4 percent penalty kill is on pace to be the worst since the NHL started compiling special teams numbers in 1977, and the 10.9 percent power play would be among the 10 worst ever. It’s actually impressive that they’re not last in the league standings given those totals. — Arthur Staple
Players over 30: The Rangers have an older core, and on the whole, it has underperformed. Chris Kreider has dealt with back issues and is currently on injured reserve with an upper-body injury. He has not been as productive as in past years. Mika Zibanejad has had a difficult season, too, and Vincent Trocheck’s numbers are down. Artemi Panarin has been good but not the force he was in 2023-24. All of that has led to a disappointing season and concern about the core going forward. — Peter Baugh
Goalie inconsistency: The Senators signed Linus Ullmark to fix their goalie troubles once and for all. But a bad November and back injury are enough to cause some concern. Ullmark did have an amazing December before the injury, but are Anton Forsberg and Leevi Merilainen sufficient to hold the team together? The fact that the Senators have to worry about goaltending is a disappointment. — Julian McKenzie
The goaltending: If the Flyers had simply received average goaltending this season they might be in a playoff spot. Instead, No. 1 Samuel Ersson has been plagued by injury (he’s out again now), while Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov have arguably been the two worst goalies in the NHL this season. The result is a team with the worst save percentage in the NHL, as well as 20.77 goals-against above expected according to Money Puck, by far the worst mark in the league. — Kevin Kurz
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The goaltending is worse than feared: Tristan Jarry has allowed six first-shot goals. He was sent to the AHL. His coach seems to have hit a breaking point. Alex Nedeljkovic is fine for a couple of games but looks like a fringe NHL goalie when his workload is extended. Neither goalie is stopping 89 percent of shots. The Penguins might have the worst goalie situation in the league. It’s thwarting a playoff push. — Rob Rossi
Multiple lengthy losing streaks: The Sharks are better than last year’s NHL-worst club that came through with securing the No. 1 pick and Macklin Celebrini. But while their competitive element on a nightly basis is miles better, they’ve still had to endure long winless stretches. One was an 0-7-2 spell to open the season, and another 0-7-1 run came from Dec. 14-31. Coach Ryan Warsofsky knew what he was getting into with his first NHL head coaching job and the long game is being played in San Jose, but one key task he’ll have is making sure a losing culture doesn’t overwhelm Celebrini and other talented youngsters who only knew winning before now. Shaving those losing streaks to fewer games will help. — Eric Stephens
Chandler Stephenson: It’s been a bumpy transition for free-agent addition Stephenson. The former Vegas Golden Knights X-factor has looked a little bit slower and his motor has run somewhat inconsistently in his first Seattle season, while his typically incredible five-on-five production has been very pedestrian. In Vegas, Stephenson was a reliable driver who hit 50 points a season easily with limited power-play time. In Seattle, he’s leaning on power-play production to prop up his production, without driving play. — Thomas Drance
Special teams: Once again, the special teams have been poor in St. Louis. The power play ranks 25th (17.9 percent) in the NHL through Thursday and has gone stretches of seven, five and four games this season without a goal. Only Jordan Kyrou (five) and Jake Neighbours (four) have more than two power-play goals this season. The penalty kill (73.8 percent, 27th in the NHL through Thursday) has been even worse. The unit has given up two or more power-play goals in a game four times this season. — Jeremy Rutherford
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Andrei Vasilevskiy hasn’t rebounded to his usual heights. (Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)
Andrei Vasilevskiy’s first half: The Lightning’s depth scoring disappoints, but that isn’t exactly a surprise. The fact that Vasilevskiy hasn’t rebounded to his usual heights is a bit more concerning. He has saved 6.25 goals above expected in 30 games which lands him 23rd in the league. That’s fine; it’s just not up to the bar he has set for himself in years past. There is still time for him to heat up, and that’s what this team needs if they want to go on a deep run. — Shayna Goldman
The power play: One of the NHL’s best regular-season power plays the previous few seasons has been out of sync for most of the season and barely in the top 20 league-wide. What’s so odd is it’s all the same personnel, with a first unit usually including Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly. One difference: Marc Savard, in his first year with the Leafs as an assistant coach, is running the unit. Here and there, Savard has swapped out Rielly for a fifth forward in Matthew Knies, but that hasn’t really stuck either. Also odd: The power play was arguably at its best when Matthews was out with an injury in November. — Jonas Siegel
Matias Maccelli’s power outage: The young Finn was one of the NHL’s most pleasant surprises the past two seasons, with 49 points in 64 games in 2022-23 to finish fourth in Calder Trophy voting. He followed that up with 57 points last year. That made him the ninth youngest player to produce at least 100 points over that span, putting him in a class with far more heralded players such as Seth Jarvis and Wyatt Johnston. This year he’s been in a brutal season-long slump, with just 5 goals and 12 points in 39 games, which has left him at times on the fourth line. A lot of Hockey Clubbers have struggled offensively this season as they’ve fallen to 23rd in goals per game through Thursday, but Maccelli has had one of the toughest drop-offs of anyone league-wide. — James Mirtle
Bad vibes: There’s a lot that’s been disappointing about this Canucks season — rough injury luck, a variety of star players underperforming, the lack of scoring chances, an inability to follow up on last season’s apparently breakthrough convincingly — but the general vibe around this Canucks team takes the cake. Vancouver has been in the national headlines on a seemingly everyday basis, their stars are a constant subject of trade rumors and widespread, league-wide speculation about dysfunctional locker room dynamics. Last year’s feel-good Canucks story has turned very sour in the first half of the year, which is far and away the greatest disappointment. — Thomas Drance
Vegas Golden Knights
Tomas Hertl: It’s hard to find many disappointments on the team with the best record in the NHL to this point, but if I had to pick one it’s Hertl’s play at even strength. In his first full season with the Golden Knights, Hertl has been a major part of the power play’s success, with seven goals and four assists with the man advantage. At five-on-five, it has been a struggle since he was traded to Vegas last season. Hertl is tied for 11th on the team with only three goals at even strength, and has the worst rating on the team at minus-10. That is a bit concerning considering he’s 31 and still has five more years left on his contract. — Jesse Granger
Hendrix Lapierre: He was good enough in 2023-24 to begin the season as the Caps’ No. 3 center, but Lapierre got off to an ugly start and never quite recovered. By mid-November, it was enough of an issue for Washington to re-acquire Lars Eller from Pittsburgh. Lapierre shifted to wing but never quite found his stride, putting up eight assists in 27 games and frequently watching from the press box. He’s currently with the team’s AHL affiliate. — Sean Gentille
Yet another bottom-tier penalty kill: Winnipeg’s penalty kill was a weakness last season and has given up more goals per minute of penalty-kill time this year than last. It would be a bigger story if the Jets’ power play wasn’t scoring more than enough goals to make up for it, but the penalty kill still costs them wins. The Jets give up too many shots from the flanks and don’t clog up enough lanes, win their boxouts, or clear enough rebounds to make up for the shooting gallery. The Jets need their penalty killers to play faster, bigger, or both, but they’re still vulnerable to the same movement, high tips and net-crashing that Colorado unleashed upon them during last year’s playoffs. — Murat Ates
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(Top photos of Vladimir Tarasenko, Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller: Fred Kfoury III / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images and Jeff Vinnick / NHLI via Getty Images)
