By Ryan Dadoun, RotoWire.com

The 2025-26 NHL regular season is in the books, and what a campaign it was. You'd be hard-pressed to find people going into the season who were willing to predict that the Buffalo Sabres would be among the league's top teams, while the Florida Panthers would be one of the worst. That alone represents a dramatic realignment of the league, but it's far from the only eyebrow raiser, so let's take a minute to step back and appreciate the 2025-26 biggest surprises and disappointments.

Connor Hellebuyck, G, Jets

After back-to-back Vezina Trophy-winning campaigns, Hellebuyck was mediocre in 2025-26, as he posted a 23-23-11 record, 2.86 GAA and .895 save percentage across 57 starts. His decline corresponded with Winnipeg crashing from an incredible 56-22-4 record in 2024-25 to missing the playoffs entirely this season. That begs the obvious question, however: How much of Winnipeg's struggles were due to Hellebuyck, and how much of Hellebuyck's struggles were a product of the team in front of him?

After all, a goaltender's raw numbers are heavily influenced by his team, so it can be hard to know which side deserved more of the blame. For what it's worth, Hellebuyck did have a plus-5.5 goals-saved above expected in 2025-26, per Moneypuck. That suggests he was at least better than average, but it was also far below his plus-39.6 from the 2024-25 regular season, so while Hellebuyck wasn't the core of Winnipeg's problem, he did fail to carry the team on his back as much as he had in the prior year.

Adin Hill, G, Golden Knights

It'd be a bit unfair to suggest that Hellebuyck let his team down by simply being less dominant than he usually is, but Hill's decline was certainly a big part of Vegas' weird season. After finishing the 2024-25 regular season with a 32-13-5 record, 2.47 GAA and .906 save percentage in 50 starts, Hill was limited to a 10-9-6 record, 3.04 GAA and .870 save percentage in 27 regular-season starts in 2025-26. A brief glimpse at the fancy stats shows Hill was minus-14.2 in goals saved above expected, which was the sixth-worst in the league. Akira Schmid also left plenty to be desired as the backup, but Schmid had just 48 regular-season appearances under his belt going into 2025-26, so it was never reasonable to expect him to carry Vegas.

That collapse in goaltending is the big reason Vegas underperformed for most of the campaign, leading to Bruce Cassidy being ousted for new head coach John Tortorella. Tortorella's hiring also largely coincided with Carter Hart returning from a lower-body injury and stabilizing the situation in net. The end result is Vegas went from a team in danger of missing the playoffs to claiming the Pacific Division title.

Brayden Point, C, Lightning

Can you name every player who scored at least 40 goals and 80 points in all three regular seasons between 2022-23 and 2024-25? It's not a long list: Leon Draisaitl, William Nylander, David Pastrnak and Brayden Point. None of them repeated that feat in 2025-26, but Nylander and Draisaitl still had great campaigns despite missing time due to injury, and Pastrnak's 100-point finish more than compensates for his decline to 29 goals.

Point took a major step back this campaign. Sure, he also had injury trouble, appearing in just 63 regular-season outings, but he also left something to be desired when healthy, recording 18 goals and 50 points. His decline was primarily due to a drop in his shooting percentage to 14% compared to an average of 21.4% over the previous three regular seasons, and a collapse in his power-play output to 11 points in 2025-26 from a minimum of 30 in each of those regular seasons from 2022-23 through 2024-25. The silver lining is he's still just 30 years old, making him a very tempting buy-low candidate next season.

Victor Hedman/Darren Raddysh, D, Lightning

Between injury, illness and a personal matter, Hedman logged just 33 regular-season games in 2025-26. You'd think losing the cornerstone of your blueline for most of the year would destroy a team, but instead Tampa Bay finished the regular season with 106 points, up from 102 in 2024-25. A big reason the Lightning were able to work through it was Raddysh.

A 30-year-old defenseman who set a career high in the 2024-25 regular season with 37 points (six goals), Raddysh went from playing in just seven of Tampa Bay's first 13 games in 2025-26 (averaging 14:49 of ice time when he was utilized) to being thrust into a role on the top pairing and top power-play unit. He not only adapted to the situation, he thrived, going on to record 22 goals and 70 points in 73 outings by the end of the regular season. You'd be hard-pressed to find many examples of a blueliner in the middle of his career who enjoyed a breakout like that.

Jordan Binnington, G, Blues

Remember how Hill had the sixth-worst goals saved above expected record in the 2025-26 regular season? The absolute bottom of the barrel belongs to Binnington at minus-22.4. He was a disaster with his 3.33 GAA and .873 save percentage in 41 outings with St. Louis in 2025-26, and unquestionably worse than his Blues counterpart, Joel Hofer, who finished the regular season with a 2.61 GAA and a .909 save percentage in 46 appearances. Binnington is a weird goaltender. He was the hero behind St. Louis' startling 2019 Stanley Cup Championship. The netminder also led Canada to victory in the Four Nations Face-Off, and while Canada did fall short in the 2026 Winter Olympics, Binnington still performed rather well in that tournament.

However, you never seem to know what you're getting with him, and while there's an argument to be made that the quality of the players in front of him matters, Binnington's horrific goals allowed above expected, coupled with how much better Hofer did under the same circumstances, makes it hard to say that his NHL struggles this season are solely the fault of St. Louis. If anything, it's entirely plausible that he's the reason the Blues aren't in the playoffs.

Ducks Young Forward Group

If you want to know why Anaheim is in the postseason, the young trio of Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Beckett Sennecke is certainly a big part of the cause. They're all former top-five picks, so they didn't come out of nowhere, but to see them all take such a big leap forward this season was a pleasant surprise. Each of them recorded at least 20 goals and 60 points in the 2025-26 regular season, and Gauthier was especially dominant, tallying 41 goals in his sophomore campaign to more than double his rookie output of 20 markers.

Anthony Stolarz/Joseph Woll, G, Maple Leafs

What cost Toronto a playoff berth this season? You might be tempted to point to the loss of Mitch Marner, and while losing a top forward like that is going to leave its mark, Toronto's offense didn't decline too much, falling to an average of 3.07 goals per game in 2025-26, down from 3.26 in the 2024-25 regular season. By contrast, it plummeted in goals allowed per game, surrendering an average of 3.60 this year versus 2.79 in the previous regular season.

Injuries to the defensive core were a factor, but Stolarz and Woll, who were such a huge part of the 2024-25 success, also fell off. Stolarz and Woll missed time due to injury in 2025-26 and were rough when healthy, with Stolarz posting a 3.28 GAA and an .893 save percentage in 26 appearances, and Woll finishing with a 3.34 GAA and an .898 save percentage in 39 outings. Both are set to come back for 2026-27, and the Leafs can only hope for a return to their 2024-25 form.

Sergei Bobrovsky, G, Panthers

Florida's biggest issue in 2025-26 was injuries, but among those players who remained, Bobrovsky was the biggest disappointment with a 3.07 GAA and an .877 save percentage in 52 appearances, down from a 2.44 GAA and a .906 save percentage in 54 regular-season outings in 2024-25. Bobrovsky and the Panthers had gone to the Stanley Cup Final in each of the previous three seasons, so fatigue probably didn't help matters. Still, he'll be 38 years old before the start of 2026-27, so a comeback is far from guaranteed at this stage of his career.

Anthony Mantha, RW, Penguins

The Penguins making the playoffs this season was a pleasant surprise, and while Mantha wasn't the biggest contributor to it, he certainly punched above his weight. Mantha set career highs with 33 goals and 64 points in 81 appearances in 2025-26, completely revitalizing his career after recording four goals and seven points in just 13 appearances with Calgary in 2024-25. Not bad for a guy who signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with Pittsburgh in the summer of 2025.

Steven Stamkos, C, Predators

There had to have been part of Stamkos who wanted to prove Tampa Bay wrong for letting him go. However, in the first campaign of Stamkos' four-year, $32 million contract, the Lightning seemed vindicated, with him scoring 27 goals and 53 points in 82 outings with Nashville, a far cry from his 40-goal, 81-point showing in Tampa Bay in the 2023-24 regular season. It seemed Tampa Bay might have correctly predicted the beginning of Stamkos' decline, but in 2025-26, the center showed he still had something left in the tank. He ended up with 42 goals and 66 points with Nashville in 2025-26 in his age-35 campaign. It wasn't enough to get Nashville into the playoffs, but clearly the reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated.

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