What Went Wrong: Oilers, Leafs

Every team enters the season with aspirations of making it to the playoffs, but nearly half of the squads fail at that goal. In our What Went Wrong series, we look at those teams that couldn't make it past the regular season.

After Corey Abbott examined the Buffalo Sabres and Arizona Coyotes in the first edition of the 2015 series, we're going to continue to climb up the ladder and examine the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs.

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Edmonton Oilers

Edmonton hasn't made the playoffs since 2006 and the Oilers were a pitiful 29-44-9 in 2013-14, but they actually did enter the 2014-15 campaign with a sense of cautious optimism. They were about to get their first full season with Ben Scrivens playing between the pipes after his solid 2013-14 campaign and their defense had been bolstered by the additions of Keith Aulie, Mark Fayne, and Nikita Nikitin.

The Oilers didn't look like a good team, but they looked like one that had the potential to take a step forward. Instead, they regressed further with a 24-44-14 record. Their defensive stopgap measures proved to be insufficient and Scrivens couldn't replicate his previous success. Perhaps most alarming though was the fact that they ranked 25th in goals per game despite having Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Taylor Hall leading the charge.

When a team littered with young, skilled forwards can't even score you know something is terribly wrong. Head coach Dallas Eakins was fired when the team had a 7-19-5 record and Todd Nelson was brought on as his replacement. The Oilers did manage to do a better under Nelson, although the bar was set incredibly low.

The silver lining is that they won the draft lottery and can draft Connor McDavid. That might have played a role in Peter Chiarelli agreeing to come in as the team's president and general manager. It might also lead to them attracting a prestigious coach like Mike Babcock or Todd McLellan and make them a more desirable destination for free agents. McDavid has the potential to be the next Sidney Crosby - he might even end up having a better career than that - and while anything can happen, everything before the draft lottery might represent the low point in Edmonton's franchise history.

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves though, let's look at which players they needed more from in 2014-15:

Nail Yakupov - Taken with the first overall pick in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, Yakupov has been a bust so far. He did record 31 points in 48 games as a rookie, but he had just 24 points in 63 contests in his sophomore campaign and 33 points in 81 games in 2014-15. On top of that he's already accumulated a career minus-72 rating. The good news is that he seemed mesh better with Nelson than he did with former coach Eakins. Yakupov actually had a respectable nine goals and 21 points in 34 contests after the All-Star break, which placed him third on the team's scoring list behind Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins. He also might have had some bad puck luck in 2014-15 as his 103.4 PDO suggests. So while he was certainly a disappointment, he's also still an intriguing sleeper.

Taylor Hall - Hall had 80 points in 75 games in 2013-14 and was consequently regarded as one of the top young forwards in the league going into this season. He had a rough campaign though, in part because he suffered a leg injury. That being said, he didn't live up to expectations even when he was healthy and ended up with just 14 goals and 38 points in 53 contests. At the age of 23, Hall has already dealt with more than his fair share of injuries and that makes him a significant wild card going forward.

Nikita Nikitin - Nikitin signed a two-year, $9 million deal with Edmonton in the hope that he would be a major factor on their blueline, but he was limited to just 42 games due to injuries. Not that he could save the Oilers when he was healthy as he ended up with 10 points and a minus-12 rating. From a Fenwick perspective, the Oilers played mildly better when he was on the ice compared to when he wasn't, but he certainly didn't live up to Edmonton's hopes.

Ben Scrivens - As mentioned above, Scrivens had a great 2013-14 campaign and fell hard in 2014-15. He posted a 3.16 GAA and .890 save percentage in 57 contests. The fact that he was playing for the Edmonton Oilers obviously didn't help matters, but even with that in mind, it was a disappointing season. It remains to be seen if Scrivens can be a reliable number one and because of that, he's the biggest X-factor in a team that's full of them. Even if McDavid performs as advertised, Yakupov bounces back, and Hall stays healthy, it might not be enough for the Oilers to make the playoffs if their defense remains weak and Scrivens can't bounce back.

Toronto Maple Leafs

It seems like a distant memory to Leafs fans at this point, but at one time the Leafs looked like they had the potential to make the playoffs in 2014-15. After all, they got off to a 19-9-3 start. There were warning signs even then thanks to a couple disastrous games and poor numbers from an advanced stats perspective though. Plus Toronto fans are conditioned at this point to expect a collapse and the only thing really unique about this season's version is that it came early.

Following their Dec. 16 win over Anaheim, victories were few and far between for Toronto for the remainder of the campaign. In an effort to stop the bleeding, head coach Randy Carlyle was replaced by Peter Horachek. If anything that made things worse.

The Maple Leafs finished with a 30-44-8 record, making this their worst campaign of the salary cap era. Given that they've only made the playoffs once since 2004, that's saying a lot.

Horachek and GM Dave Nonis were shown the door following the conclusion of the season. That's likely just the start of what could be a very busy summer in Toronto. The Leafs had no shortage of problems this season, but let's focus in on four of the players that underperformed:

Phil Kessel - Kessel has always been a streaky player, which is frankly not uncommon for goal scorers, but even by his standards this was an odd campaign. He got off to a great start with 18 goals and 41 points in his first 38 games through New Year's Eve, but as it became clear that this team was not going to compete for a playoff spot, he collapsed. He had just seven goals and 20 points in 44 contests for the rest of the season. He's supposed to be the team's offensive leader, but the team went silent and he couldn't save them. Now there's a fair chance he'll get dealt as Toronto tries to shake things up and move in a new direction.

Nazem Kadri - Kadri broke out in the shortened 2013 campaign with 18 goals and 44 points in 48 contests. His rise is one of the reasons Toronto got to the playoffs that year and although he regressed in 2013-14, he still had a respectable 20 goals and 50 points in 78 contests. He struggled mightily in 2014-15 though with 18 goals and 21 assists in 73 contests. With Kessel, James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak typically making up the top line, Kadri is supposed to be one of the Leafs' top secondary scorers. He did end up finishing fourth on the team in points, but that said more about the sorry state of the squad than anything.

Joffrey Lupul - Few players have fallen faster than Lupul has over the last few years. At his peak he had 67 points in 66 contests in 2011-12, but he recorded just 44 points in 69 games in 2013-14, and 21 points in 55 contests this season. To make matters worse, 2014-15 was just the second campaign of his five-year, $26.25 million contract. That cap hit and term means that Toronto probably won't be able to get rid of him through any method short of a buyout. He's 31 years old, so we can't dismiss the possibility of him bouncing back, but even on a team filled with underperformers in 2014-15, Lupul stands out as one of the worst offenders.

David Clarkson - It might be a bit of a cheat to include him because Toronto was able to unload his contract onto Columbus on February 26, but there's no question that he was part of the problem. The Maple Leafs signed him for his blend of grit and offensive abilities and while it seemed obvious from the start that they overpaid, he still ended up performing below most people's expectations. He had just 15 goals and 26 points in 118 games with Toronto over two campaigns. In addition to collapsing offensively compared to his 30-goal campaign with New Jersey, he ran into injury problems. The fact that his $5.25 million annual cap hit through the 2019-20 campaign is no longer tied to Toronto is a big weight off the franchise as it looks to reverse its fortunes.