Top five most disappointing NHL players from 2024-25

Apr 22, 2025, 10:00 EDT

Top five most disappointing NHL players from 2024-25

Credit: Bob Frid-USA TODAY Sports

The 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs are fully underway – but these five players aren’t part of them.

The 82-game grind can be tough for even the best NHL stars. Injuries, inconsistency or other outside factors can turn anyone’s season upside down. Past success guarantees nothing.

There were significant expectations placed on these five players to perform this year. And no matter the reason, they underdelivered. Today, let’s look at five notable names that just didn’t get the job done during the 2024-25 regular season:

5. Alexandar Georgiev, G (San Jose Sharks/Colorado Avalanche)

Heading into the season, expectations on Georgiev were mixed, to say the least. He had 40 wins two years ago and backed it up with 38 last season. But he struggled down the stretch in 2023-24, with the Avs winning games despite some atrocious efforts in net. Georgiev was downright terrible to start the season, going 8-7-0 with a .874 save percentage in 18 games before he was traded to the last-place Sharks. At that point, it was an opportunity for Georgiev to outperform a poor team and maybe salvage his career like Mackenzie Blackwood did. Good goalies can still perform on bad teams – just ask Blackwood.

Instead, Georgiev posted similar numbers in San Jose and got outplayed by rookie Yaroslav Askarov by quite a margin. The Sharks already told Georgiev they weren’t bringing him back for 2025-26, and it feels like his NHL days might be over. Georgiev was once seen as a young goaltender with a bright future. But at 29, the Bulgarian-born keeper seems to have lost all confidence. Maybe a team will sign him for less than a million, give him a backup role, and see what he can do without major pressure. But it’s been a while since Georgiev could positively impact a game and it might cost him future opportunities.

4. Elias Lindholm, C (Boston Bruins)

It feels like forever since we saw Lindholm register a career-best 42 goals and 82 points in 2021-22. But since then, it’s been a seemingly endless fall for the 30-year-old Swede. He signed a seven-year, $7.75 million AAV deal this past summer to play a crucial role for the Bruins. Instead, he had 17 goals and just 47 points for his worst output in a season in which he played at least 60 games since he put up 44 back in 2017-18. His advanced analytics were a bit of a mixed bag, but he simply couldn’t get it done on Boston’s top line.

Lindholm said he suffered a back injury in early August that ultimately hampered his season, so there’s hope that he can perform next year if fully healthy. He did play his best hockey of the year after the NHL Trade Deadline, which is nice to see. But overall, it’s clear he can’t be a play-driver and isn’t a No. 1 center unless absolutely everything aligns like it did when he was the middle man between Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk. Boston wasn’t good, no question about it. But Lindholm needs to be much, much better to justify that big payday. Jeremy Swayman also could have made this list after watching his numbers plummet this year, but how much of that was due to his delayed start to the season?

3. Juuse Saros, G (Nashville Predators)

The entire Predators’ lineup could appear here, including Steven Stamkos. But the Predators bet big on Saros, signing him to an eight-year extension and ultimately moving on from top goaltending prospect Yaroslav Askarov. The Preds were a dreadful team, but good goaltenders can still find ways to shine despite it. In Saros’ case, though, he posted some of the worst numbers of his career. His -13.53 5-on-5 goals saved above expected was the third worst in the NHL, only edging out Seattle’s Philipp Grubauer and Philadelphia’s Samuel Ersson.

Saros has built a reputation for dragging subpar Predators’ lineups from the depths of hell into the playoffs, just like last season. So when even he couldn’t pull it off, that’s when you know things were going poorly in Tennessee. The team in front of him didn’t get the job done, but Saros didn’t steal wins like we’ve become accustomed to seeing. Hopefully, it’s just a one-year blip and he can find his game again after a summer off.

2. Chris Kreider, LW (New York Rangers)

If you ask many at Madison Square Garden, Kreider’s days with the Rangers are over. It feels like an eternity since he had a 52-goal, 77-point campaign in 2021-22 – by far the best season of his career. He even had 75 points last year, bouncing back from 54 the year before. Kreider looked like a shell of his former self, and in a year of disappointment for the Blueshirts, the American winger was among the biggest.

Kreider admitted he played through some ailments this year, which might explain at least part of the 45-point drop. But the reality is that Kreider’s inconsistency and lack of drive to the net didn’t help, either. The big winger still has another two years left on his contract and expressed his desire to stay put. At 33, his best days are probably behind him, but if he can get back to scoring at least 30 goals again, it’ll be easier to eat his $6.5 million cap hit.

1. Elias Pettersson, C (Vancouver Canucks)

You all knew he was going to be No. 1. The $11.6 million man is coming off by far the worst season of his NHL career, scoring just 15 goals and 45 points. Granted, this was the first time he failed to play 80 games since the COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign, but he was still on track for just 58 points in a full 82-game season. For context, he has never been below 60 ever before. Just about everything this season was a massive disappointment, including his lackluster 1.7 shots per game. He’s never been a huge shot-producer, but he did score 40 goals and 102 points two years ago.

Between getting called out by his coach and his feud with J.T. Miller, absolutely nothing went right for Petey. That’s two straight years of regression, which has to be concerning for the franchise after locking him into an eight-year contract back in March. Pettersson is a talented player who can be a difference-maker – we just haven’t seen that version of him in more than a year. Trading him seems like an impossible task, and it might not be the right move, either. But EP40 has to figure this out and fast.

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