Top Five Disappointments of the 2010 Season

I recently wrote about how I thought the 2010 NHL season was one of the best in recent memory , but this season was far from perfect, so here’s a list of the huge disappointments and let downs this year had to offer.

#5 The Pittsburgh Penguins

The defending Cup champions had a ton of hype going into the 2010 season, and they had all of the necessary pieces to repeat. The Pens recorded 249 goals for, the fifth-best in the entire NHL, while Sidney Crosby notched an incredible 109 points (51g, 58a). Their blueline was one of the best and most promising in the league – a solid mixture of experienced veterans (Gonchar, Orpik) and up and coming defensemen (Goligoski, Letang). They had the offensive talent and stable goaltending to win back-to-back Cups, but their power play disappeared during the second half of the season, ranking 19th in the NHL in power play goals. Their season finally came to a close at the hands of the Montreal Canadians in the second round of the playoffs.

#4 The St.Louis Blues

Going into the season, the Blues had a great deal of promise and potential. They had the best second-half record of any team in the NHL in 2009, and they snuck into the postseason, finishing 6th overall before being swept by the Vancouver Canucks. High priced winger Paul Kariya had just gotten healthy, and many pundits (including yours truly) projected a decent season for St. Louis. The Blues even opened their season in Sweden against the Red Wings, and swept the two-game series, but they never followed that success with any consistency, and they ended up missing the playoffs entirely due to their inability to hold on to leads, sketchy goaltending and an atrocious power play that finished 20th overall in the NHL. They have a wealth of prospects, and after signing Jaroslav Halak, have some decent goaltending now, but the 2010 season was an abject failure in St.Louis.

#3 Martin Brodeur

Undoubtedly, this season was a huge disaster for the future Hall of Famer. Despite his 45 wins, the veteran goaltender cracked under both Olympic and playoff pressure, disappointing in both platforms. First, Brodeur won the starting job for Team Canada, only to lose it after a terrible 5-3 loss to the Americans, allowing weak goal after weak goal. He wouldn’t see the ice for Canada again, as Luongo would lead Canada to Gold in Vancouver. Then, during the NHL postseason, Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils were bounced in the first round by the seventh-seeded Flyers. Over the five games in the first round, Brodeur recorded an abysmal 3.01 GAA, with a measly .881 save percentage. Only time will tell if Brodeur has anything left in the tank, but this was definitely a season to forget.

#2 Nikolai Khabibulin

The ‘Bulin Wall’ was one of the biggest names in the free-agent pool going into the 2009 season. He had just cut his ties with the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Edmonton Oilers moved in and signed him to a huge four year, $15 million dollar contract. Khabibulin would only play 18 games for the Oilers in 2010 (and lost 9 of those starts), before going down with an injury in his back, which required a season-ending surgery in January of 2010. Edmonton would go on to lose 47 games, which was the worst record in the entire league, and to make matters worse, Khabibulin was arrested on a DUI charge while driving in Arizona. With such a big contract, the Oilers were sure that they’d get at least a decent goaltender, but instead, they paid Khabibulin for essentially nothing.

#1 The Flyers Clinching a Playoff Berth in the Shootout

The Flyers had a great cinderella run through the Eastern Conference during the postseason, and they upset a couple of great teams to get to the Stanley Cup Final, but their season shouldn’t have earned them a spot in the playoffs to begin with. Inarguably, the Flyers snuck in on a glorified technicality, beating the Rangers in the 82nd game of their season in a skills competition. The NHL clearly doesn’t want shootouts deciding seasons (why else would they only allow OT in the playoffs?), but despite their best efforts, the Flyers ended the Rangers playoff hopes with a cheap victory that left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. The Flyers measly 88 points in the standings placed them 19th overall in the NHL, but somehow, that was enough to get them into the dance. The NHL’s abolition of the tie created a league where bad teams can still succeed by cashing in on cheap points in the standings, and the Flyers took 88 of those points to the Finals.

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