PL Dubois, Connor Brown and the NHL’s 10 biggest disappointments of 2023-24

The NHL is a harsh, results-focused business.

What a player did in the past doesn’t really matter, it’s all about what value they’re providing today. The scrutiny of individual performances has only escalated because of the flat salary cap climate where players need to live up to their cap hits for a team to have success.

Earlier this year, we highlighted some positive surprises by analyzing the league’s most improved players. Now, here are the NHL’s 10 biggest disappointments this season (only players, no coaches or GMs), in no particular order. We’re excluding players who were waived and demoted to the AHL like Jack Campbell and Ryan Johansen as those are pretty obvious scenarios.

Rob Blake’s legacy as general manager could come down to Dubois’ ability to help the Kings get over the hump. Having lost to Edmonton in the first round for consecutive years, Blake paid a ransom, both in acquisition cost and an eight-year, $8.5 million AAV contract, to bring Dubois to L.A.

The 25-year-old center is tied with Leon Draisaitl, Bo Horvat and Mika Zibanejad for the 13th-highest cap hit among all NHL centers yet he’s produced a measly 28 points in 63 games. Dubois has spent most of his time centering the Kings’ third line, with rookie grinder Alex Laferriere serving as his most common running mate. Is this the ideal role/linemate quality for Dubois to maximize his value? No, but he was given a shot higher up the lineup earlier in the season and hasn’t done enough to warrant a bigger opportunity.

Sometimes when a talented player’s production falls off dramatically, bad luck is heavily involved. That may have some impact as the Kings are shooting just 6.2 percent with Dubois on the ice at five-on-five. But to fully buy the “he’s just been snakebitten” case, he’d need to be driving play like a monster, which has not been the case. Dubois’ two-way metrics are pedestrian and he ranks sixth among Kings forwards in scoring chance contributions (either setting up a chance for a teammate or creating one for himself) per hour according to Corey Sznajder’s tracking. That matches the eye test as there are too many games where he’s barely noticeable.

Dubois’ lack of power-play production has put a hefty dent in his overall point totals, as he racked up 23 man-advantage points last season but has just six with the Kings. His form has picked up since the All-Star break but he needs to show a lot more.

Ottawa is becoming a goalie graveyard.

It doesn’t matter who they sign or trade for, the Senators always end up with problems between the pipes every year. Ottawa’s lackluster defensive play contributes to the goalies’ lack of success but when you make a five-year, $20 million commitment in free agency, the least you’re betting on is competency. The ask isn’t Vezina-caliber goaltending, it’s average play so that the team has a genuine chance to win more games.

Korpisalo has failed to deliver that. The 29-year-old’s .887 save percentage is third-worst among all goalies who’ve played at least 20 games. Korpisalo’s minus-17.4 goals saved above expected rating — which measures a netminder’s performance relative to the shots and chances they’ve faced — is by far the worst in the NHL, according to Evolving-Hockey.

Ottawa’s defensive metrics have notably improved over the last several weeks — the Senators rank middle of the pack in surrendering shots and expected goals since Feb. 1 — yet Korpisalo’s play continues to drag the team down.

Connor Hellebuyck and Ilya Sorokin are the only NHL goalies with more term remaining on their contracts than Korpisalo. Yikes.

The Sabres have fallen from the NHL’s third-highest scoring team in 2022-23 to 24th this season. A fun, dynamic, elite offensive squad has all of a sudden had a difficult time manufacturing offense. Several forwards have underperformed for this drop-off to occur but the most notable is Thompson, the Sabres’ No. 1 center.

Thompson had a monster 47-goal, 94-point campaign in 2022-23 but has produced just 19 goals and 36 points in 54 games this season. His offensive numbers have fallen off a cliff at both even strength and the power play.

Several factors are hindering Thompson this season. The first is that he’s been slowed down by injuries. Thompson suffered a serious hand/wrist injury in November but returned to the lineup just three weeks later wearing a brace. One can imagine how detrimental a hand/wrist injury can be for a sniper, even when they’re technically healthy enough to play again. He missed another game last week due to an injury, which is a possible sign that he’s been playing through a nagging ailment or two.

On the ice, opponents have scouted Thompson much better and taken away his lethal one-timer, especially on the power play. We can look at Thompson’s offense from “slap shots” as a proxy for his one-timer production. He was one of the league’s most prolific shooters and scorers from slap shots last season but has seen those numbers crater. Buffalo’s power play has subsequently dropped from ranking ninth to 25th in the NHL.

Thompson’s one-timer taken away

Season

Slap Shot Goals

Slap Shot Shots

2022-23

12

56

2023-24

3

22

Data courtesy NHL.com

It also hurts that the linemates he forged excellent chemistry with last season, Alex Tuch and Jeff Skinner, are going through down years as well.

A lot has gone wrong for the Devils to be outside a playoff spot. They’ve been blasted by injuries to key players, the goaltending has been a mess, last year’s prized acquisition Timo Meier has been slowed down by injuries and the blue line has been a problem.

Many would attribute New Jersey’s back-end issues to losing Damon Severson and Ryan Graves and the subsequent overreliance on rookies. There’s some truth to that as Severson and Graves were impactful pieces but that’s an overly simplistic view because Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec have arguably been the club’s two best defensemen. The biggest back-end problem, besides Dougie Hamilton’s catastrophic injury, is that Siegenthaler and John Marino, two of New Jersey’s top-four staples, have regressed in 2023-24.

Let’s start with Siegenthaler, New Jersey’s once-emerging shutdown defender. Corey Sznajder’s tracking data reveals that the 26-year-old left-shot defenseman has been a turnover machine — he’s botched a defensive zone retrieval or failed to exit the zone on 36.8 percent of his defensive zone puck touches. That’s the worst mark on the Devils’ blue line and one of the worst in the league.

On top of that, Siegenthaler’s numbers defending the rush have slipped too — he’s allowing rush chances against at the highest rate among New Jersey defensemen, according to Sznajder’s tracking. It’s obviously dragged Siegenthaler down to be missing Hamilton, his typical defense partner, but that alone can’t excuse this drop-off.

Marino was a terrific two-way force anchoring the Devils’ second pair last season. He’s been pulverized defensively in 2023-24, owning a 3.57 five-on-five goals against per hour rate that ranks fourth-worst among all NHL blueliners who’ve logged at least 700 minutes this year. There have been too many egregious breakdowns like the clip below where he completely misses his defensive assignment.

Pressed up against the salary cap last offseason, the Oilers traded second-line right winger Kailer Yamamoto. Somebody had to go and Yamamoto’s $3.1 million cap hit seemed rich. It was a logical move but now Edmonton needed an affordable middle-six replacement on the right wing.

Enter Brown.

Brown, a fast, scrappy two-way winger with a track record of scoring 15-20 goals and 35-40 points, missed nearly all of the 2022-23 campaign with a torn ACL. Because of that absence, he was eligible to sign a performance bonus-laden contract. That worked perfectly for the Oilers, who inked him to a one-year contract. Edmonton could squeeze his league minimum $775,000 base salary under the 2023-24 cap, and then have any performance bonuses roll over to the 2024-25 cap. It seemed like a clever maneuver because where else could you find a middle-six winger for a league minimum price?

The move has panned out horribly.

Brown has scored zero goals and just five assists in 54 games despite starting the year in a top-six role. He has defensive value and excels on the penalty kill, but he’s a shadow of his pre-injury self offensively. Most harmfully, the overwhelming majority of his $3.225 million performance bonus — which was only contingent on Brown playing 10 games — will roll over as dead cap space for 2024-25, which is the final year of Draisaitl’s ultra-team friendly $8.5 million cap hit contract.

Kuzmenko took the NHL by storm as a first-year player in 2022-23. The skilled, happy-go-lucky Russian winger was a perfect top-line fit in Vancouver with Elias Pettersson, erupting for 39 goals and 74 points. That earned him a two-year, $5.5 million AAV extension.

Kuzmenko’s offensive chemistry with Pettersson vanished this season, as he recorded just eight goals and 13 assists in 43 games with the Canucks. Even those numbers were a tad generous as three of his eight goals were against the lowly San Jose Sharks.

Why such a precipitous drop-off in his offensive production? Last year, Kuzmenko flashed elite offensive instincts in terms of finding soft ice and was seemingly always open around the net for a pass. Kuzmenko ranked in the top five among all NHL players with 31 goals from “high-danger” areas (defined as the inner slot and around the goalie’s crease), according to NHL Edge.

Goals from “High Danger” Area in 2022-23

Kuzmenko’s net-front shot and goal rates have plummeted in his sophomore campaign.

Kuzmenko’s net-front offense drying up

Season

Goals from High Danger Areas

Shots from High Danger Areas

2022-23

31

84

2023-24

7

37

Data courtesy NHL Edge

Kuzmenko basically saw all of his backdoor tap-in goals dry up. Teams probably didn’t have a scouting report on him in 2022-23, whereas now they appear to defend him significantly better around the net. Combine that with some shooting percentage regression — he scored on a ridiculous 27.3 percent of his shots last year — and you have the recipe for a catastrophic offensive decline.

Making matters worse is that head coach Rick Tocchet lost all trust in Kuzmenko defensively. Kuzmenko’s lack of pace on the forecheck, poor defensive awareness and turnovers resulted in several healthy scratches and falling ice time.

In just half a season, Kuzmenko went from the ideal running mate for Pettersson to a bad contract that the Canucks needed to dump as part of the Elias Lindholm trade. He’s been a bit better in Calgary, so maybe a fresh start can unlock more confidence.

The Blue Jackets allowed the second-most goals against of any NHL team last season. Columbus renovated its blue line over the summer by trading for Ivan Provorov and signing Severson. Combine that with the return of Zach Werenski, who missed all but 13 games in 2022-23 due to injury, and the team essentially had three-quarters of a new top four. Add a coaching change on top of that and there was optimism that the Blue Jackets would start cleaning up their defensive play.

Fast forward to now and Columbus is in the same place it was last year: ranked 31st in goals-against. Severson and Provorov’s underwhelming performance is a major reason why.

Via Dom Luszczyszyn’s Net Rating player card 

Severson’s a talented puck-mover and was a mighty useful player in New Jersey, but his decision-making and defensive reliability have been problematic. The 29-year-old right-shot defenseman has been torched for 3.22 goals against per hour at five-on-five, which is the worst rate of all Columbus defensemen besides Andrew Peeke, a regular healthy scratch who was traded to Boston at the deadline. He’s also taken a ton of penalties (bottom-10 among NHL players in penalty differential). Severson’s adjustment hasn’t been made any easier by the oblique injury he suffered in late November that caused him to miss more than a month.

One reason for Severson’s dip may be that he’s playing significantly tougher matchups in Columbus. During his final year with the Devils, Severson ranked fifth among New Jersey defenders in terms of how often he matched up against top lines, according to PuckIQ — he spent a fair chunk of time against talent further down the lineup. In Columbus, he ranks second behind only Werenski in playing against “elite” competition.

The biggest concern with Severson is his contract: He has another seven years left at a $6.25 million AAV.

During his first three years in Montreal, everybody knew exactly what Anderson was and wasn’t.

Anderson was a lightning-quick straight-line scorer blended with a heavy frame and some physicality sprinkled on top. He wasn’t a talented playmaker, a smart decision-maker or a particularly reliable defensive player. You could live with those warts, however, because he was such a physical specimen and had scored 57 goals in 190 games in those three years, which translates to a 24 goals per 82 games pace.

Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis has worked hard to evolve Anderson into a more well-rounded player. It seems to have had the opposite effect because the 29-year-old winger’s confidence looks shot and his results across the board are very disappointing.

Anderson has scored just eight goals and 10 assists in 60 games, including just two goals in his last 26 games. On top of that, he’s continued to be a huge drag on his teammates’ two-way results, according to Evolving-Hockey’s RAPM model.

Graphic via Evolving-Hockey

Right now, it’s as if you’re getting all of the usual warts of Anderson’s game without any of the usual positives. With another three years left after this at a $5.5 million cap hit, Anderson looks like he may have one of the league’s most inefficient contracts.

Gustavsson was a breakout stud for the Wild last year. Acquired for Cam Talbot in the 2022 offseason, Gustavsson finished with a sparkling .931 save percentage in 39 games that ranked behind only Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark. That excellent campaign earned him a three-year, $3.75 million AAV extension.

Adjusting to a more chaotic defensive environment this season, the 25-year-old Swedish netminder has crashed hard. Gustavsson is rocking just an .894 save percentage in 38 games and a minus-9.1 goals saved above expected rating, according to Evolving-Hockey, which ranks bottom-five among all goalies. He’s been decisively outplayed by 39-year-old Marc-Andre Fleury.

With Minnesota desperately trying to claw back in the playoff race, Gustavsson has recorded a save percentage above .900 in just five of his last 20 games. Fleury, on the other hand, has finished with a save percentage above .900 in 11 of 19 games since that same mid-December timeframe. That includes a recent heater where Fleury has a .921 save percentage over his last 10 appearances.

Gustavsson needs to recapture last year’s form for the Wild to have any shot at a miracle playoff berth.

There’s a ton of blame to go around for the Penguins’ disastrous season which has wasted a Sidney Crosby masterclass.

Pittsburgh’s power play is horrific, Rickard Rakell and Reilly Smith have underperformed, there’s an overall shortage of quality winger/secondary scoring talent, Erik Karlsson has played well but not to the level of his contract and the club lacks a true defensive stopper on the blue line besides Marcus Pettersson.

Graves isn’t at the top of the list for reasons why the Penguins are poised to miss the playoffs, but his highly disappointing play certainly hasn’t helped. Graves inked a six-year, $4.5 million AAV contract with the Penguins last summer to replace Brian Dumoulin as the steady defenseman to complement Kris Letang on the top pair.

It hasn’t worked out. Graves was a poor fit with Letang and hasn’t fared any better with Karlsson. He’s been relegated to third-pair duties at some points and has seen his overall usage slip. Since Feb. 1, Graves has averaged just 16:33 over 16 games. That’s a massive decline compared to the 21:24 he averaged during the club’s first 16 games.

Graves has been mistake-prone, isn’t physical enough considering his 6-foot-5 frame and hasn’t made a notable impact defensively or offensively. The transition to a new team and systems can be challenging for a defenseman, and Letang and Karlsson certainly aren’t easy players to quickly mesh with, so he should improve next year, but Graves’ contract already looks like a potential albatross.

Honorable mentions: Trevor Zegras, Kaapo Kakko, Andre Burakovsky, Timo Meier, Lukas Reichel, Jonathan Huberdeau, Jordan Kyrou, Dylan Cozens, Matty Beniers, Jake Oettinger, Ilya Samsonov

All stats in this story were collected prior to Monday’s games.

(Photos of PL Dubois and Connor Brown: Kirby Lee and Perry Nelson / USA Today)