Top 10 Worst Inaugural Seasons by an Expansion Team
So the Seattle Kraken is entering the NHL now huh? This’ll be interesting. The road of an expansion team is a rough one. In fact, the Golden Knights are an outlier in this regard. Seattle, the bar is set high. You have to somehow have a successful debut. No pressure. Just don’t do something like this.As bad as these other teams were at least they won games. Tampa literally went 0-14 to start off and then 0-12 to start the next season at least they eventually made it to the NFC Championship and even won a Super Bowl but it wasn’t a pretty start
At Least there was 1 superstar on that bad team, and he would later go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Lee Roy Selmon.
Its Joeysworld
The Capitals had a horrendous start as they were mostly made of washed up NHL veterans past their prime Tommy Williams, a 34-year-old veteran who played 13 NHL/WHA seasons led this dismal eight game winning bunch with 58 points in 73 games. This team was so bad that defenceman Bill Mikkelson logged a team worst -82, in just 59 games. In one particularly miserable stretch of the season, the Capitals lost 17 games in a row, before winning two of their last five to get to eight wins. In all, they scored just 181 goals in 80 games (worst in the league), while surrendering 446 (also worst). Ultimately finishing 8-67-5
Besides posting the worst expansion record in baseball history, New York's 40-win season is one of the worst of all time by any team. To top it off, considering the Yankees won the World Series that year, cheering for the Mets couldn't have been any worse. From the beginning they were always LOLMETS. The Detroit Tigers would come close to breaking that bad of a record yet they remain with the worst record in the modern MLB
The Browns once were a much more proud franchise. But after Art Modell gave the city of Cleveland the middle finger the Browns have been a laughingstock they were 2-14 and haven’t been that relevant. It’s a testament to how good the Browns of the past were that the franchise still has an all-time winning record despite a grim present. Cleveland has had just two winning seasons since being reborn in 1999 and a single playoff appearance which was a 33-36 Wild Card loss to Pittsburgh back in 2002.
The Grizzlies joined the Toronto Raptors as the NBA put two new teams in Canada at the same time. It wasn't a memorable season for either city as the Grizzlies won just 15 games while the Raptors managed just 21 victories. Vancouver clearly lacked offensive talent as the team averaged only 89 points, the fewest by an expansion team. The Grizzlies aren't alone, though, as the league's worst expansion team. The San Diego Rockets (1967-68), Cleveland Cavaliers (1970-71), Dallas Mavericks (1980-81) and Miami Heat (1988-89) all finished their first seasons with an identical 15-67 record. I’m still putting the Grizzlies here because they haven’t done anything since they were established. Now they’re in Memphis and they are still pretty irrelevant
The pickings were fairly slim at the 1992 draft. While established clubs could protect 14 players, this left little in the way of meat for the Senators who would go on to lose the second most games in NHL history with 70, against just 10 wins and four ties. The team’s best player was veteran defenceman Norm Maciver, who had 63 points in 80 games, but was also -46 (on a team that scored a league worst 202 goals and allowed 395). This team was so bad that career pugilist Mike Peluso scored the fifth most goals on the team (15), while leading Ottawa in penalty minutes at a whopping 318. After winning their first game ever, 5-3 over the Montreal Canadiens, the Sens wouldn’t win their second game of the year until game 23, losing 19, tying one and losing one in OT. Overall, however, the Sens have been a relative success since that demoralizing debut.
Hard to believe that just eight years after having one of the worst ever expansion records, the Islanders would be hoisting the first of 4 straight Stanley Cups. Some of the foundation for those Cup-winning Isles teams was laid in 1972, when New York picked up a young Billy Smith to play goal, as well as giving playing time to Lorne Henning and youngster Bob Nystrom. This particular Islanders team would finish dead last at 12-60-6, a full 35 points behind expansion cousins the Flames. And Bill Mikkelson started his curse on expansion clubs being the Islanders worst plus-minus player at -54 (he was an all-time lousy -82 with Washington in 1974-75). In one horrible stretch of the 72-73 campaign, New York lost 12 straight games, by a combined score of 50-13. Since that awful debut season, the Islanders have been fairly successful.
There wasn’t a lot going for this misshapen team that included ill-fated former first overall selection Patrik Stefan (1999), they would go on to win just 14 of 82 games. In fact, the Thrashers would win just four of their last 42 games, a stretch that included a 16-game winless streak early in 2000 as well as a 10-game losing streak through late February, early March. It was so bad the Atlanta market crashed and burned and the team is now in Winnipeg.
Through a very complicated system, the expansion San Jose Sharks, owned by the infamous Gund Brothers, were stocked with many former Minnesota North Stars players. As it turned out, the pool of players from Minnesota in the dispersal draft and then the following expansion draft were a little underwhelming. So much so that the Sharks leading scorer during that dismal 1991-92 campaign was their first round draft pick (second overall), Pat Falloon. He had 59 points in 79 games, 13 more than veteran right winger Brian Mullen. The Sharks stumbled out of the gate that season, winning just one of their first 16 games, including a 13-game losing streak. The Sharks would overcome that horrible first year to become one of the more stable NHL franchises, even if they haven’t won a Stanley Cup yet.
The Falcons had a rough start going 3-11 literally one of the worst starts until the expansion Bucs. In fact Atlanta won six games in their first three seasons behind the forgettable quarterback duo of Randy Johnson and Bob Berry and only made 3 playoff appearances in 23 seasons