Three NHL Teams Whose Upgraded Rosters Still Aren't Playoff-Worthy

NHL parity causes improved teams to miss the playoffs in crushing fashion. Adam Proteau explains why the Red Wings, Blue Jackets and Ducks could be headed that way.

Anaheim Ducks center Trevor Zegras remains without a contract. What's the disconnect?

The parity in the NHL we see every season in the Salary Cap Era guarantees there will be numerous teams who put up decent years yet miss the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In the 2022-23 campaign, teams like the Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins, Nashville Predators and Buffalo Sabres all finished with win percentages of between .555 and .567, but each of the four teams finished fifth in their division and wound up outside of the playoff picture.

You can take it to the bank – there will be other teams this coming season that suffer the same fate as the Flames, Preds, Pens and Sabres did last year. And the three teams we’re going to point out below likely will be significantly improved from their 2022-23 showing, yet because of the stiff competition, they’ll be non-playoff teams next spring.

The first such team is the Detroit Red Wings, who posted a 35-37-10 record last season and finished seventh overall in the Atlantic Division. Wings GM Steve Yzerman added skill and grit to his lineup, most notably with forwards Alex DeBrincat, J.T., Compher, Christian Fischer and Daniel Sprong, defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere, Justin Holl and Jeff Petry, and goalie James Reimer.

When you look at the other Atlantic playoff contenders – Buffalo, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Florida, Toronto and Boston – can you say the Wings have the high-end quality of talent that its opponents do? Stranger things have happened, but on the whole, the answer to that question is “no.”

The Red Wings need all the stars to line up perfectly to be a post-season team in 2023-24. As we all know, very rarely do all the stars line up perfectly for any team. A fifth- or sixth-place finish is in the cards for them, and that won’t please long-suffering Wings fans, but that’s the sense many NHL observers have for them.

The same goes for Columbus in the Metropolitan Division, which, for our money, remains the most competitive division in the league. The Blue Jackets brought in veteran blueliners Ivan Provorov and Damon Severson this summer, and they also have a new high-impact performer in prized rookie center Adam Fantilli.

Those additions, as well as better luck on the injury front, will make Columbus better than their horrid 25-48-9 mark (including an Eastern Conference-worst 9-25-7 road record) in 2022-23.

But while the Jackets have a shot at pushing for a playoff berth late in the coming season, who are they going to unseat in the Metro to qualify for the post-season? They’re not going to be better than Carolina. They’re not going to finish ahead of the New Jersey Devils or New York Rangers. And they’re not going to be better than the deeper, re-jigged Penguins. So the goal of a playoff position may be a bridge too far for them.

Finally, in the Western Conference’s Pacific Division, the Anaheim Ducks were the NHL’s worst team in '22-23, finishing with a horrendous 23-47-12 record. Ducks GM Pat Verbeek has a couple of key RFAs to deal with in blossoming stars Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale, but he improved the group with the signings of veteran winger Alex Killorn and rugged blueliner Radko Gudas.

With good health and the continuing development of its young core, Anaheim will likely finish at least ahead of the San Jose Sharks, so there will be improvement for the Ducks. The problem is, they don’t have the horsepower to leapfrog over Pacific teams such as the Flames, Vancouver Canucks and Seattle Kraken to make it back to the post-season for the first time since 2017-18.

Ducks fans realize they’ll need to be patient with this organization, but there will probably be much more pain coming from them before they take the next competitive step to be a legitimate Cup threat.

We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating here: progress in hockey’s top league is not linear. You can make incremental gains as an organization but still not be solid enough to be one of the NHL’s 16 playoff teams. And this coming year, those incremental gains may well prove to be all the Wings, Ducks and Blue Jackets have to look forward to.