The best season a player from each NHL team had while missing the playoffs

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksPlayoff projectionsNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterThe best season a player from each NHL team had while missing the playoffsMario Lemieux had 70 goals and 168 points in 1987-88 but the Penguins missed the playoffs. Denis Brodeur / NHLI via Getty Images Share full articleIf your team misses the playoffs, the season was a failure and there’s nothing to celebrate. Or at least, that’s typically what fans are told, especially at this time of year. And often, it’s true enough. But not always, because even a season that doesn’t lead to a playoff run can still have its highlights. Like, for example, a player who puts together a season for the ages, despite all the losing. That sort of success seems worth recognizing. So today’s assignment is simple: Let’s go through all 32 teams and highlight the single best season any player has ever had in a year where they still didn’t make the playoffs. The Ducks have had two players hit the 50-goal mark in a non-playoff season, and you can probably guess who they are. Paul Kariya had 50 in 1995-96, which was all the more impressive for being just his second NHL season. But I’m going to go with Teemu Selanne and his 52-goal campaign in 1997-98, which still stands as the franchise’s single-season record. It was so impressive that Selanne was a finalist for the Hart despite the (Mighty) Ducks missing the playoffs by 13 points. Despite having a ton of history to draw from, we don’t have to go very far back to find a Bruins candidate. That would be David Pastrnak, who had 43 goals and 106 points last year, while also being one of the only Bruins to make it through the whole season without being traded. We’ve got lots of options to choose from here, including multiple Rasmus Dahlin seasons and Rick Martin’s 52 goals in 1973-74. But as with most attempts to find a “best” of just about anything with the Sabres, this one ends with everyone looking up at Dominik Hasek. Specifically, his 1995-96 season in which he led the league with both a .920 save percentage and 43.3 goals saved above average. Note that this was considered a bad year by Hasek’s standards; it was the only season in a six-year stretch where he didn’t both win the Vezina and be a Hart finalist. What a bum. There are two strong candidates from the 1991-92 team, with Gary Roberts scoring 53 goals while Al MacInnis added 20 from the blue line. But there’s no surprise over who I’m going with here: One of my all-time favorites, Jarome Iginla. This will, of course, be his 2001-02 campaign, which saw him put up 52 goals and 96 points to win both the Rocket Richard and the Art Ross. But not, somehow, the Hart — he finished tied for first with Jose Theodore, who won on the tie breaker. Why yes, I do plan to die mad about that, thanks for checking. If we’re counting the Whalers years, we could go with Blaine Stoughton’s 52 goals, or maybe somebody such as Brendan Shanahan or Geoff Sanderson, or even Zarley Zalapski. But we’ll keep it in Carolina, which means I think we give the nod to Cam Ward back in 2010-11, when he led the league in games, minutes, shots and saves and somehow still had the energy to put up a .923 season and finish a career-best seventh in Vezina voting. I’m not sure what’s weirder: that we have a Hart Trophy winner available to us, or that he’s barely in the running. That would be Al Rollins, the beleaguered goalie on the 1953-54 team that finished last while hanging him out to dry so badly that he got the Hart in one of the weirdest pity votes in sports history. Instead, we’ll go with Bobby Hull, whose 58 goals didn’t just lead the league in 1968-69, but stood as the most any player had ever had in NHL history to that point. The offensive ranks are dominated by Nordiques, including 100-plus point seasons by Joe Sakic, Peter Stastny and Michel Goulet. I’ll give the nod to Joe Sakic, but we’ll make it the 2006-07 version, who had 100 points on the nose at the age of 36 in what would turn out to be the last full season of his career. We’ll pause here so you can all get your “isn’t every year of Blue Jackets history a non-playoff year” jokes off, because Columbus actually serves up three very strong candidates. We could go with Rick Nash’s 2003-04 season, in which he earned a share of the Rocket Richard with the genuinely hilarious stat line of 41 goals and 16 assists. There’s last year’s Zach Werenski campaign (and maybe this year’s too). But I’m going to go with Sergei Bobrovsky in 2012-13, in which he made his Blue Jackets debut by winning his first of two Vezinas. We’ve got lots of North Stars history to choose from, including some impressive seasons from Dino Ciccarelli, Brian Bellows and Bill Goldsworthy. Dallas doesn’t give us quite as much to work with, which means we probably have no choice but to go with Jamie Benn and his 2014-15 season that saw him lead the league in scoring. That’s right, an Art Ross despite a playoff miss. Impressive, right? Please don’t ask how many points he had. With all due respect to DGB favorite Reed Larson, who managed 60-plus points from the blue line while missing the playoffs five different times, this one ends up being easy. With a nod to Marcel Dionne’s 121 points in 1974-75, it has to be Steve Yzerman and his 62 goals and 127 points in 1989-90. The Gretzky-era Oilers never missed the playoffs, and the decade of darkness doesn’t offer us much beyond the occasional solid season from Sheldon Souray or Devan Dubnyk, so this is going to come down to Connor McDavid vs. Leon Draisaitl. While Draisaitl can boast a 50-goal season in 2018-19, I’ll go with Connor McDavid and his 108-point Art Ross win in 2017-18. A funny thing about Panthers history is that it’s chock full of goaltenders having excellent seasons and missing the playoffs anyway. On most teams, Roberto Luongo’s 2003-04 season would be an easy pick, given he led the league in goals saved above average while finishing as a Vezina finalist. But I think he’s narrowly beaten out by John Vanbiesbrouck in 1993-94, as the former Ranger stood on his head for a brand-new expansion team, finishing as Vezina runner-up and a Hart finalist. (Bronze goes to Pavel Bure’s 59 goals in 2000-01.) It’s another tough break for Marcel Dionne, whose 56 goals and 107 points in 1982-83 would top most teams. Not the Kings, though, as the first ever career playoff miss by Wayne Gretzky in 1993-94 came with a league-leading 92 assists and an Art Ross-winning 130 points. Don’t sleep on Niklas Backstrom’s 2008-09, Dwayne Roloson’s 2003-04 or even Manny Fernandez’s 2005-06. But we don’t have to overthink this one, and can hand the honors to Kirill Kaprizov and his 96 points two years ago. As you’d expect, there are plenty of excellent goaltending seasons to choose from, including Carey Price in 2018-19. And nobody has ever had more points in a Montreal playoff miss than Nick Suzuki’s 77 two years ago, which narrowly beats out Saku Koivu’s 75 in 2006-07. But if you give me access to this much history, you know I’m going to use it, so let’s go all the way back to Newsy Lalonde and his league-leading 43 points in just 24 games in 1920-21. He didn’t win the Art Ross or the Hart because neither award even existed yet, but he does get bonus points for being named “Newsy.” It occurs to me that I must be a modern-day Hart voter because I’ve been ignoring defensemen so far. If any team can change that, it has to be the Predators, so let’s go with a 23-goal season from Shea Weber. That only narrows it down to two years, 2008-09 or 2013-14. I’ll go with the latter, which saw a more grizzled version of Weber named a Norris finalist. Unlike other teams, we already know we won’t have any 50-goal or 100-point seasons to choose from, because it’s the Devils. I’m tempted to go with defenseman Tom Kurvers, racking up 66 points in 1988-89, which is the sort of season that convinces dumb teams to trade for you the following year. But this is just going to end up being a Martin Brodeur season, and we might as well accept that. We’ll go with his 1995-96 season, in which a 23-year-old Brodeur played 77 games and posted a (for the time excellent) 2.34 goals against average and .911 save percentage while finishing fourth in Vezina voting. The right answer here is probably Ilya Sorokin’s 2021-22 season, which saw him post a career-best .925 save percentage. But just for fun, I’m going to go with one of my favorite Hall of Very-Good guys: Ziggy Palffy, and his 48 goals and 90 points from the 1996-97 fishstick squad. We could make John Vanbiesbrouck our first two-time winner, or go with Henrik Lundqvist or maybe Brian Leetch in 2000-01. But I think this one has to be Andy Bathgate, who scored 40 goals to win his only Hart despite a playoff miss in 1958-59. Another easy call, with apologies to that 90-point Tim Stützle season. The only question is which Erik Karlsson season you want to go with. I’ll take 2015-16, in which he led the league in assists with 66 on his way to 82 points and a Norris runner-up finish. We’re going back to the ’90s for this one, and you could make a fantastic case that it should be Mark Recchi, who had 53 goals and 123 points in 1992-93. But so did everyone else, which is why it remains the greatest season in NHL history. I’m going to jump ahead a year and go with Eric Lindros in 1993-94. When you weren’t using him to crush one-timers on your little brother in NHL ’94, he was scoring 44 goals and 97 points while dominating the game physically in a way we’d never quite seen before. But yeah, mostly the NHL ’94 thing. With all due respect to Paul Coffey’s 103 points from the blue line in 1989-90, this one’s easy. It is, of course, going to be Mario Lemieux, and specifically his 70-goal, 168-point season in 1987-88. It’s the single greatest year by a non-playoff player ever, so good that he won the Hart Trophy nearly unanimously despite the Penguins missing the playoffs by a single point on the final night of the season. Along with Rollins and Bathgate, it’s the third and to this day still last time MVP voters honored a playoff miss. And here’s our first two-time winner. Only one player in franchise history can beat Timo Meier’s 76 points in 2021-22, and it’s a defenseman. Come on back, Erik Karlsson, as your 101-point Norris win from 2022-23 laps the field and then some. So here’s a fun thing I learned: Excluding their lone playoff appearance in 2022-23, the Kraken have only had one player in their history receive any postseason award votes at all that weren’t for the Lady Byng. If you knew that was Joey Daccord getting two third-team all-star votes in 2023-24 then … well, I’m guessing you’re Joey Daccord. Here’s a cool trivia question about Brett Hull: Not counting his aborted five-game comeback with the Coyotes after the lockout, he played 18 full NHL seasons, starting in 1986-87 with the Flames and ending in 2003-04 with the Red Wings. How many postseason appearances did he make? The answer is … 19, because he actually debuted with a pair of games in the 1986 playoffs. In other words, our pick will not be Brett Hull, for the Blues, or anyone else. Let’s go with Alex Pietrangelo, who had a career-best 54 points in 2017-18. Another easy one, as Steven Stamkos actually offers us a pair of Rocket Richard seasons. I’ll take his 60-goal season in 2011-12. It’s one of only four times in NHL history that a player has had 60 goals while missing the postseason. We’ve met two of the others, Lemieux and Yzerman. The fourth hasn’t been mentioned … yet. Can you figure out who it is before we get to him? We have a pair of 50-goal seasons from Rick Vaive, plus 90-point seasons from Mats Sundin and Eddie Olczyk and whole bunch of Phil Kessel. But I’ll reach back to 1967-68, when the Leafs followed up their most recent Cup win with a playoff miss despite getting .934 goaltending from not one but two goalies. In this house, we respect Bruce Gamble, but I’m still going with 43-year-old Johnny Bower. If we’re counting the Coyotes, it’s probably Sean Burke from 2000-01. If we’re also counting the original Jets (which we should not), then it’s Dale Hawerchuk in 1988-89. But since the league insists that this is a brand new franchise, we only have last year to work with. And that’s OK, because Clayton Keller quietly racked up 90 points. We’ve got three excellent Quinn Hughes seasons to choose from here, plus the 102-point Elias Pettersson year that convinced us all that he’d be an elite superstar forever. But I’m still salty about having to skip Pavel Bure from some goalies in the Panthers section, so his 51 goals and 90 points for the 1997-98 team get the nod here. Don’t argue with me, Canucks fans, I could have picked someone else from that team. They’ve only missed the playoffs once, in 2021-22, and all the members of that team were immediately invited to a gathering at Kelly McCrimmon’s house and then never seen again. Let’s give the nod to Jonathan Marchessault for his 30-goal season and move on. Here’s a twist: We’ve arrived at that fourth and final 60-goal scorer, and it’s not Alexander Ovechkin. Instead, we’re going to go with Dennis Maruk, who had an eye-popping 60 goals and 136 points for the 1981-82 team that mustered just 65 points while missing the playoffs for the eighth time in eight seasons. Ilya Kovalchuk had a pair of 52-goal seasons from the Thrashers days, but you know we’re not using those. We could turn to a personal favorite in Dustin Byfuglien, who had 20 goals for the 2013-14 edition of the Jets. But the simpler answer here is probably the right one, so we’ll finish our list with Kyle Connor and his 47 goals and 93 points from 2021-22. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Sean McIndoe has been a senior NHL writer with The Athletic since 2018. He launched Down Goes Brown in 2008 and has been writing about hockey ever since, with stops including Grantland, Sportsnet and Vice Sports. His book, "The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL," is available in book stores now. Follow Sean on Twitter @DownGoesBrown