2016 NHL Year in Review: Penguins, Blue Jackets lead a year of surprising hockey teams

Welcome back to our SB Nation NHL year in review!

In the last few days, we’ve brought you the most disappointing and most surprising players of 2016. Now it’s time to look a little big picture and focus on the teams that brought us the most unexpected joy over the last 12 months.

And we’re going to get a little outside the realm of the NHL for a few minutes here. Bear with us and keep all hands and feet inside the browser window.

What’s left to say that hasn’t been said countless times already?

The Blue Jackets tanked hard last year after starting the year 0-8 and firing their coach. John Tortorella didn’t exactly turn things around.

But now? Columbus is the only surprise anyone wants to talk about, suddenly legitimate playoff contenders and a well-rounded team brimming with confidence and a completely unexpected “fun factor.”

Left for dead after a coaching change mid-season, disappointing starts from Sidney Crosby, Phil Kessel and Marc-Andre Fleury and injuries to key guys like Kris Letang, the Penguins set upon the arduous task of retooling on the fly.

A trade for Trevor Daley. A trade for Justin Schultz. Handing the net over to Matt Murray in a pinch. Hiring Mike Sullivan. Putting Nick Bonino, Carl Hagelin (another trade piece) and Phil Kessel on a line.

By the end of the season, the Penguins were a red-hot hockey monster. And they rode it to the Stanley Cup and into the sunset.

There were few reasons to tune into the World Cup of Hockey, the NHL’s watered-down version of the Olympics with gimmicks galore that nobody watched and lost a lot of money.

One of those gimmicks, though, was Team North America: a team comprised of under-24 players from Canada and the United States that existed because ... well, I don’t know why. But I’m glad they did. They were awesome.

Johnny Gaudreau. Nathan MacKinnon. Connor McDavid. Jack Eichel. All of the NHL’s brightest young players on one squad, tearing up veteran national teams like it was a video game or something.

Their game against Sweden was arguably the best three hours of hockey all year.

We’ve watched the Florida Panthers stockpile young, talented players for years now. In 2016, Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Jonathan Huberdeau finally came into their own. Helped by a plethora of veteran resurgences (Roberto Luongo, Jussi Jokinen, Jaromir Jagr and Brian Campbell all had good years), the Panthers carried a long mid-season win streak to an Atlantic Division title and the first playoff appearance in years for the franchise.

Other youngins’ have played well this year. Denis Malgin and Michael Matheson are already good contributors. But the surprise of the 2015-16 Panthers is waning as the team struggles this season with a hiring change and front office politics. They spent the most money of any NHL team this offseason, which was also a surprise.

The other surprise is that it’s not quite working out just yet. But we certainly didn’t think we’d be talking so much about the Panthers this year.

Let’s count the ways the Habs surprised us this year.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The odds against Finland in the 2016 World Junior Championship were pretty hefty. To win the gold medal in front of their home fans, the Finns would need to go through Canada, Sweden and Russia. Three straight wins against the three best hockey nations in the world.

And they pulled it off. A 6-5 win eliminated the Canadians from medal contention. A 2-1 win edged them past their Swedish rivals. And a remarkable goal from Kasperi Kapanen in overtime gave the Finns their fourth WJC gold medal ever in one of the best World Juniors moments of all time.

A middling 2015-16 season ended with a flourish in Philly.

The Flyers rattled off six wins in their last ten games of the season to barely squeak into the playoffs. Once there, they gave the vaunted Washington Capitals everything they could handle after falling into a 3-0 hole. Goalie Michal Neuvirth pulled off some heroics, dragging the Flyers back into a series they had no business remaining in.

Since, the Flyers have been one of the better teams in the league. Now, it’s Steve Mason at the reins, leading the team to 14 wins in their last 20 games. They’re deeper, and they’re a threat.