One of the unique, and unexpected, trends over the past few seasons in the NHL has seen 100-point teams miss the playoff the following season.

It has happened 10 times over the past three seasons. Will that trend continue in the 2025-26 season?

Let’s take a quick look at the past three years.

Calgary had 111 points, St. Louis 109, Pittsburgh 103 and Washington had 100 points.
They all missed the playoff in 2023.

St. Louis had a 28-point decrease (109-81), Washington lost 20 points (100-80), Calgary dipped by 19 (111 to 93) and Pittsburgh dipped by 12 (103-91).

Nashville was the other playoff team in 2022 who missed the playoffs in 2023, and they had the smallest decrease of five points from 97 to 92.

The Blues drop was unexpected as they had essentially the same core group of players. They just struggled.

Calgary’s drop was mainly due to losing Johnny Gaudreau in free agency and trading Matthew Tkachuk for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar.

Washington replaced both their goalies in 2023, but Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren had basically the same Sv% and GAA in 2023 that Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov had in 2022. John Carlsson got injured and missed half the season, and then Washington traded Dmitri Orlov when the season was lost.

Pittsburgh changed out Mike Matheson and John Marino and brought in Jeff Petry and Jan Rutta. They didn’t lose any of their top forwards or goalies. They just allowed 35 more goals and scored 14 fewer.

New Jersey had 112 points, Minnesota had 103 and Seattle 100.
They all missed the dance in 2024.

The Devils dropped 31 points (112-81), Seattle had a 19-point decrease (100-81), and Minnesota dropped 16 points (103-87).

New Jersey opted to go with young D-men in Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec while shipping out Marino and Damon Severson. That combined with their goalies (Vanecek and Akira Schmid) both struggling after solid 2023 seasons led to the dip. Also, Jack Hughes missed 20 games.

Seattle had the utopian season in 2023. Their fourth line of Daniel Sprong, Ryan Donato and Morgan Geekie combined for 44 goals. All their forwards contributed, and they basically won by outscoring teams as Martin Jones went 27-13-3 despite having a .887Sv% and 2.99 GAA. They came back to reality in 2024 but also traded or didn’t re-sign their entire fourth line. Geekie and Donato have been very productive since leaving.

Minnesota is an odd case. They scored more goals in 2024 and had a better power player. Their 5×5 play had them +4 in GF-GA in 2023 and -5 in 2024. Not a massive difference, but it was their penalty kill that killed them. They allowed 46 goals in 256 kills in 2023 but saw a 45% increase allowing 67 goals on 263 kills in 2024. I wonder how much of a factor advanced scouting was.

In 2023, Filip Gustavsson was outstanding posting a 2.10 GAA and .931Sv% in 37 starts. In 2024 he had a 3.06 GAA and .899Sv% in 45 starts. He actually faced a lower number of HD chances in 2024 than he did in 2023 but gave up more goals. I’d have to dig deeper to find if opposing shooters exploited one or two specific areas. The Wild’s offence was actually better in 2024 than in 2023, but they did allow 41 more goals against. They won seven fewer games in 2024 than 2023 and they had seven fewer one-goal wins in 2024 than 2023. They didn’t win the close games as often.

The New York Rangers led the NHL with 114 points, Boston and Vancouver each had 109.
They all missed the playoffs in 2025.

The Rangers dropped 29 points (114-85), Boston crashed by 33 points (109-76) and Vancouver lost 19 points (109-90).

Nashville was very close to being in the 100-point club to miss the next year as they had a 31-point dip (99-68), and the New York Islanders had a 12-point decrease (94-82).

The Rangers 29-point drop was quite interesting. Their GF-GA in 2025 was even at 255-255. They scored 23 fewer goals than in 2024 and allowed 29 more, which is a swing of 52 goals. Their biggest difference was they were 23-4 in one-goal games in 2024, but only 14-10 in 2025, and in blowout games of 3+ goals or more they were 17-17 in 2025 after going 24-14 in 2024. Igor Shesterkin’s GAA (2.86 to 2.58) and Sv% (.905 to .913) were slightly worse, but if you look deeper, he actually had a better goal saved above expected in 2025, so it wasn’t goaltending.

The Rangers created their own drama when GM, Chris Drury, sent out an email to rival GMs saying Jacob Trouba and Chris Kreider were available. When that news went public, the Rangers spiraled. The Rangers were 12-6-1, and in 7th place in the NHL, but a 6-2 loss in Edmonton on November 23rd led to Drury’s infamous email. The Rangers went 27-30-6 (25th in NHL) after the news went public. Trouba was traded a few weeks later, and Krieder was dealt this summer, both to Anaheim, but no doubt the news the GM wanted to trade two of their most popular players impacted the Blueshirts.

Boston crashed out, because goaltending couldn’t save them like they did in 2024. Linus Ullmark was traded to Ottawa and Jeremy Swayman held out. Missing training camp and preseason never allowed him to get on track. The Bruins allowed 50 more goals in 2025 and scored 41 fewer goals. A 91-goal swing from 2024 to 2025 illustrated how weaker they were in every aspect of the game. David Pastrnak was the only bright light as he produced 106 points after scoring 110 in 2024. Can the Bruins rebound this season?

The Canucks were similar to the Rangers with internal drama. The JT Miller/Elias Pettersson saga finally came to a head as Miller was traded to the Rangers. The Canucks opted to keep Pettersson and we’ll see if that was the right decision. He produced a paltry 45 points (in 64 GP) while making $11.5m last year. Thatcher Demko was injured, but in the 23 games he played he wasn’t good. The Canucks had a +58 GF-GA differential in 2024 to being -18 in 2025. It is surprising they only dropped 19 points in the standings with a negative 76 goal differential.

Many incorrectly declared Nashville the “summer winner” last year in free agency. They signed Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei, but it didn’t lead to success. The Predators scored 44 fewer goals and allowed 26 more. Gustav Nyqvist went from a 0.93 point-per-game (PPG) player down to 0.37. Filip Forsberg dropped from 94 points to 76. Roman Josi’s offence dropped by 0.32 PPG and he missed 29 games with injury. They traded Ryan McDonagh to Tampa Bay in the summer, Alexander Carrier (after 28 games) to Montreal, Jeremy Lauzon missed 50 games and Josi 29. The D corps struggled, their backup goalies’ (Justus Annunen/Scott Wedgewood) had much worse numbers than Kevin Lankinen did in 2024. Juuse Saros’ GAA did go up a bit to 2.98 from 2.86, but he wasn’t the issue.

The Islanders 12-point drop was solely on their offence. They scored 23 fewer goals. They actually allowed one less goal in 2025 than they did in 2024. Their PP was dreadful last season at 12.6%, and even worse at 8.7% net because they allowed eight shorthanded goals. They were only +18 on the PP after being +44 in 2024. Fix their power play and they will likely contend for a Wildcard spot again.

Which 100-point teams will miss the playoffs next season. While we have seen fewer 100-point teams the past few seasons; 13 in 2022, to 12 in 2023, 10 in 2024 to nine last year, the % of 100-point teams to miss the playoffs the following season was 30.7% in 2023, 25% in 2024 and 30% in 2025. Nashville missing at 99 points made it 36.3% of teams with 99+ points in 2024 to miss in 2025. If that trend continues, we could see two or three 100-point teams miss it this season.

Here’s a reminder of the candidates.

New Jersey and Montreal grabbed the final two playoff spots in the East with 91 points.

In the past three seasons, the 10 teams with 100+ points who missed the playoffs the following year had an average decrease in points of 22.9. The largest being 33 and the fewest 16.

Of those nine teams, who changed the most thus far?

Winnipeg signed Jonathon Toews, Gustav Nyqvist and Tanner Pearson. They lost Nikolaj Ehlers, Mason Appleton and Rasmus Kupari. They struggled in the playoffs again, mainly Connor Hellebuyck.

Washington added Declan Chisholm and Justin Sourdif and removed Andrew Mangiapane, Dylan McIlrath and Lars Eller.

Vegas added Mitch Marner, Colton Scissons and Jeremy Lauzon. They are without Nic Hague, Tanner Pearson and Alex Pietrangelo (bilateral femur reconstruction).

Toronto added Nicolas Roy, Mattias Maccelli and Michael Pezzetta. They are without Marner, Pontus Holmberg and Max Pacioretty (still unsigned).

Dallas hasn’t added any new players yet. They have a new head coach in Glen Gulutzan. They moved out Mason Marchment, Evgenii Dadonov and Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci, but the latter were trade deadline acquisitions. They will have Mikko Rantanen for the full season, so that is a significant regular season addition.

L.A. added Joel Armia, Corey Perry, Brian Dumoulin, Anton Forsberg and Ceci. They are without Vladislav Gavrikov, Jordan Spence, Tanner Jeannot, Trevor Lewis, Samuel Helenius and David Rittich.

Tampa Bay added Holmberg and Jacob Pelletier and are without Luke Glendening and Cam Atkinson.

Colorado made many in-season moves last year. Even though they traded Rantanen late in the year, I still view him as a departure. Martin Necas replaced him, but it is a downgrade. They also have Gabriel Landeskog and Brock Nelson for a full season. They also traded Charlie Coyle (trade deadline acquisition) and Miles Wood to Columbus to free up cap space and lost Jonathan Drouin. They did add Brent Burns on the blueline.

Edmonton added Andrew Mangiapane, David Tomasek, Curtis Lazar and rookie Matt Savoie will get a look. Trent Frederic only played seven minutes in the regular season last year, so I view him as new as well. They are without Evander Kane (only played in playoffs), Connor Brown, Corey Perry, Viktor Arvidsson, Jeff Skinner and John Klingberg.

Those are the nine teams who had 100 points. Carolina (99) and Florida (98) were close, so if you want to pick one of them, I will allow it.

It is challenging to think of a 100-point team dropping that much, but it’s happened regularly and with the volatility of the NHL I can see it happening again.

L.A. would be my first pick. They got older and overpaid for veterans. Darcy Kuemper was amazing last season with a career-low 2.02 GAA. His career average is 2.54. He’s poised to regress a bit.

I will go with Tampa Bay. They are getting older; they’ve made the playoffs eight years in a row and are due. I don’t have a great reason other than that. It leads to them making a coaching change.

Washington had the Ovechkin goal-chase, and they scored 70 more goals in 2025 than they did in 2024 and allowed 33 less. I really like their head coach, Spencer Carbury, and how he implemented the triangle offence last season, but they seemed to have everything go right last year, and since I have to pick a third team, I’ll go with them.

Who would you pick and why?