Four teams that are underperforming halfway through the 2023-24 NHL season

Credit: © James Guillory

Every year, there are teams that surprise us and do a lot worse than we expected. Sometimes, it’s a team that sees their roster downgraded or age catch up to a lot of key players. In that case, a team may simply get worse. But just as frequently, and sometimes more frequently, it’s a team that isn’t actually any worse than they were before, but they just found the bounces going against them. It’s a part of the sport, but it can be frustrating for teams that expected more, and it can result in some drastic overreactions.

Since we’ve passed the halfway mark of the season, I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at some of the teams that are doing worse than they’ve actually played this season. Whether it’s a good team seeing bad bounces put their season in jeopardy, or a bad team that’s seeing that bad luck put them in lottery contention, there’s been a couple of big examples for both.

Anaheim Ducks

Record: 16-30-1 (30th)
5v5 PDO: 98.4 (t-28th)
5v5 GF% to xGF%: -4.13 (29th)

This may come as a shock considering that not a lot of people rated the Ducks this season. Sure, they likely expected some improvement, but even with a few veteran additions, no one anticipated a playoff team. So maybe 30th in the league might be a bit too low than some expected, but it’s far from a surprise.

The truth is that, to some extent, they are playing much better than what their record indicates. They still aren’t great, but they should be in the conversation with Columbus and St. Louis and Montreal, not right up there with Chicago and San Jose as the worst in the league. The Ducks’ biggest issue is that their young, dynamic offense hasn’t been scoring, and when that’s supposed to be their whole schtick, it’s going to lead to some underperformance. In fact, 18 of the 26 players on the Ducks to play at least 50 minutes of ice time in all situations have underperformed their individual expected goals, and 20 of them also have a 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage below 8.68, which is the league average right now. When some of your bigger names like Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry and Alex Killorn haven’t been as productive as you’d like, particularly in the goal department, you aren’t going to thrive.

This is probably a happy accident for the Ducks, though. While they aren’t this bad, they still weren’t going to compete for a playoff spot, and they already know what they have in a lot of their young players, so having a season go really badly due to bad luck gives you the ability to add another stellar prospect to an already deep pool while also not feeling like you have to make drastic changes to fix the problem, so long as your general manager identifies that and doesn’t overreact.

Carolina Hurricanes

Record: 26-15-5 (9th)
5v5 PDO: 97.8 (31st)
5v5 GF% to xGF%: -5.34% (31st)

This should be a much more obvious choice. Going into this season, the Hurricanes have been one of the most consistent teams in the NHL since Rod Brind’Amour took over as the head coach in Carolina, both in terms of their record (tied for third in points percentage from 2018-19 to 2022-23) and in terms of their play (first in 5v5 xG share in that same span). But in 2023-24, that consistency has been lacking.

While it hasn’t helped that their offense has struggled with the 10th-worst shooting percentage in the league, they’ve been even worse in terms of their goaltending, which is the worst in the league at 89.8%, giving them the second worst PDO in the league at 97.8. Frederik Andersen was borderline passable when he was in the net, but he hasn’t played since Nov. 2 due to blood clots. Pyotr Kochetkov was starting to find a groove in recent weeks after a poor start, but he’s also been hurt recently. Antti Raanta has the worst 5v5 save percentage in the league among goalies with at least 20 games this season and was down in the minors at one point this season. It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing in the crease this season for the Canes, and that’s why they aren’t running away with the Metropolitan Division like they usually are despite the third-best 5v5 xG share at 56.29%.

The good news is that this is something that still has time to turn around. Maybe that means that they bring in a goalie at the deadline, although that doesn’t always turn out well. Or maybe they’re banking on Kochetkov’s play before the injury being legitimate or hoping Andersen can play well if he’s able to return. Maybe Raanta is able to turn it around, who knows. The good news for the Canes is that the reason for their struggles is due to goaltending, which is always chaotic, and they have smart enough people in their front office to recognize that they shouldn’t overreact to that kind of stuff.

Los Angeles Kings

Record: 22-14-9 (14th)
5v5 PDO: 98.4 (t-28th)
5v5 GF% to xGF%: -4.04% (27th)

The Kings were the trendy team to start off this season. They were overwhelming opponents with their intense offense and stifling defense, and any time they could get through that, Cam Talbot was as tough to beat as anyone in the early months of the season. But ever since a 16-4-3 start, they’ve gone just 6-10-6 and looked like a shell of that team that started the season.

Some of that is due to the fact that the Kings have dropped off a bit, going from a 58.87% 5v5 xG share in those first 23 games to a more middling 51.42% in their last 22. But they’ve also been dealing with the worst 5v5 shooting percentage (5.31%) and seventh-worst 5v5 save percentage (90.18%) in that span, with that shooting percentage being the fifth-worst in the entire season. Outside of their usual suspects in Kevin Fiala, Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe, and some surprise performances from Trevor Moore and Quinton Byfield, the Kings haven’t gotten as much offense as they’d hoped for, resulting in them underperforming their expected goals for per 60 minutes by 1 goal during their recent slump and 0.4 all season. The biggest culprit is Pierre-Luc Dubois, their shiny new offseason addition that has struggled with the Kings with just 10 goals and 20 points in 45 games, which is not what they want from someone they gave up four assets and $8.5 million of salary cap space for eight years to get.

In terms of where they go from here, a lot is still up in the air. As I pointed out, this isn’t just a case of the Kings getting bad luck, but also an instance of their play dropping off along with it, although not nearly as much the results have shown. If they can return to their earlier play, they’re going to be a tough out for any team even if they can only get a Wildcard spot, but if they can’t, they’ll be playoff cannon fodder like they have been the past two seasons.

San Jose Sharks

Record: 13-31-4 (32nd)
5v5 PDO: 97.6 (32nd)
5v5 GF% to xGF%: -7.2% (32nd)

This one seems not all that obvious until you think about it. The Sharks have been horrendous all year, to the point that it’s almost impressive, but you need a bit of bad luck to be this bad. Just like how I mentioned last week that the Winnipeg Jets’ streak of three goals or fewer allowed required some great luck just to not end up with a game where you allowed four, the Sharks have needed some really bad luck to have multiple losing streaks of 11+ games this season without having one game where they have the bounces go their way.

Don’t get me wrong, this team is still really bad, as their 41.68% 5v5 xG share is second last only to the Chicago Blackhawks, who also fall in the 41% ballpark. However, they aren’t historically bad like many, including myself, thought earlier this season. They’re just “worst in the league this season” bad. And yet, they currently have a 5v5 goals share of 34.48%, which would make them the first team in the analytics era to have fallen below 35% if this holds throughout the season. Their goaltending hasn’t helped their case since their 90.64% save percentage is currently the 13th-worst in the league, but it’s their league-worst 6.83% shooting percentage that has caused them problems. Some of that is due to the makeup of the roster, as they certainly have a plethora of players that aren’t strong offensively, but they’re still scoring 0.54 5v5 goals per 60 fewer than their 5v5 xG rate. When players like Anthony Duclair, Mike Hoffman and Kevin Labanc aren’t performing anywhere close to what we expect, and even their most productive player in Tomas Hertl has underperformed, you’re not going to score much.

That said, it’s still an indication of the roster’s skill and not just bad luck. While this season is similar to that of the aforementioned Ducks in that it’s a blessing in disguise to get them a great draft pick, this Sharks team does not have the pieces set in place like the Ducks do to start competing quickly. Still, it’s a great way to get it started.

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