The Miami Dolphins’ playoff hopes officially ended with Monday night’s loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

The Dolphins were ultimately unable to overcome their slow start to the regular season, and now more than a quarter-century will have passed since the franchise last celebrated a postseason victory. Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was sharp in the Week 15 finale, finishing the night with just four incompletions in the 28–15 win.

While Rodgers’ efficient performance helped Pittsburgh maintain its first-place spot in the AFC North, Pro Football Hall of Famer Troy Aikman sparked some chatter when he took issue with a call referees made in the second half that he described as “ridiculous.”

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The call in question surfaced in the third quarter. The Dolphins defense briefly appeared to make a stop on third down, but Miami’s efforts were negated by a taunting penalty. Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks tackled Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth short of the line to gain. 

After delivering the big hit, Brooks stood up and momentarily stood over Freiermuth before the tight end came to his feet.

PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAMER TROY AIKMAN CRITIQUES NIL LANDSCAPE, TRANSFER RULES AND LANE KIFFIN’S LSU MOVE

After Brooks turned away, he quickly turned back and briefly exchanged words with Freiermuth. The penalty flag gave the Steelers an automatic first down and allowed them to extend their drive.

Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth (88) runs with the ball in the third quarter against the Miami Dolphins at Acrisure Stadium on Dec. 15, 2025, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images)

“If this is a penalty on the Dolphins for taunting after the play that’s gonna be unbelievable,” Aikman, an NFL analyst for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” broadcasts, said moments after noticing the referees throw a flag.

“I personally didn’t see anything after the play,” Aikman continued. “But we’ll take a look at it and see if we can’t follow it. I know the official who threw the flag, he was quite a ways away.”

ESPN’s rules analyst Russell Yurk defended the officials’ decision, noting that the league’s competition committee made “a point of clarification and emphasis” when it comes to players hovering over an opponent.

“Yeah, Troy, it was No. 20 standing over him. That’s a point of clarification and emphasis from the competition committee. They want that called, they’ve instructed officials to call it.”

“That’s ridiculous. I mean, that’s not much. That’s not much at all in my opinion. I don’t know. I think it’s a terrible call. And I’m not excusing the behavior. Just don’t think there’s enough there.”

Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) runs away from Miami Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks (20) in the third quarter at Acrisure Stadium on Dec. 15, 2025, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Barry Reeger/Imagn Images)

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The Steelers went on to score on another drive after picking up a first down via the penalty. The Dolphins had won four games in a row entering Monday night, but the loss to Pittsburgh dropped Miami’s record to 6–8.

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Traditionally speaking, Thanksgiving in the U.S. and then the first few weeks of December tend to be seen as important markers in the NHL season — the moment at which early-season trends and struggles can no longer be completely waved away as “small-sample-size theater” but instead need to be taken at least a little bit seriously.

That truth goes especially for teams that went into the season with aspirations for a playoff berth but currently find themselves staring at longer odds to get in than they expected. And in a scrambled-up campaign such as this, the 2025-26 season offers plenty of teams who fit that description. So let’s zoom in on eight of them, examining what has gone wrong and what they might do about it.

Specifically, these are the teams who entered the season with relatively high playoff odds (per the Elo rating forecasts) but now find themselves most on the wrong side of the postseason bubble. Along the way, we’ll also identify the other team in the standings that is their “nemesis” from here on — the one whose playoff fate correlates most inversely with their own, meaning they’ll need to chase that team down or otherwise elbow it out of the way if they hope to overcome their slow start.

Note: All numbers are as of Friday, Dec. 12, 2025. Teams are sorted by highest preseason playoff chances.

Playoff chances: Preseason: 87% | Current: 53%

By now, it’s fair to say the two-time defending champs might actually be in a bit of trouble. Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov haven’t played a single game yet this season due to injuries — the former is skating again and might be back relatively soon, but the latter figures to be out until at least the playoffs — while holdover names like Sam Reinhart, Gustav Forsling, Carter Verhaeghe, Aaron Ekblad and, in net, Sergei Bobrovsky are on pace for diminished production this season vs. last.

There’s still time for the Panthers to turn things around, and they have a tendency to improve as the schedule progresses in recent years anyway. But for now, it’s truly a toss-up whether we’ll even see them back in the playoffs again, much less a third straight Final, or if they’ll become the first defending champ to miss out since the 2015 Los Angeles Kings.

Nemesis: Toronto Maple Leafs. When Toronto misses the playoffs, Florida makes it 60% of the time; when the Leafs get in, Florida’s chances fall to 47%. Interestingly, the majority of both teams’ playoff odds come from chasing down one of the higher-ranked teams in the Atlantic, not sneaking in as a wild-card team: Only 21% of the time does either team make it in as a wild card.

Playoff chances: Preseason: 84% | Current: 56%

The President’s Trophy Curse keeps on giving to Winnipeg. After bowing out vs. Dallas in Round 2 of last year’s playoffs, the Jets started out this year fine enough, but haven’t been the same since reigning league MVP Connor Hellebuyck was placed on injured reserve with a knee injury in the middle of November. In his absence, Winnipeg had just three wins in 12 games, and they’re tied with the Devils for the league’s worst record specifically in December.

That situation has their playoff odds leaking down from 86% on Nov. 15 to just 56% now, sending them tumbling squarely into the West’s wild-card blender. Hellebuyck made his return this weekend, so these chances could stabilize some, but he’ll do nothing to fix an offense that’s fallen from third in scoring last year to 16th this season.

Nemesis: Utah Mammoth. Utah is in every team’s crosshairs out of the Central, if not the whole West, being the team most likely to finish exactly one spot out of the playoffs. But the Winnipeg-Utah battle might end up being the most consequential nemesis matchup in the entire league from this point onward.

In simulations where Utah misses the playoffs, Winnipeg makes it 62% of the time — but in those where Utah makes it, the Jets’ chances fall to 41%, one of the biggest gaps in one team’s odds associated with another team making or missing the playoffs.

Playoff chances: Preseason: 74% | Current: 51%

All of the preseason speculation in Toronto was around how the Leafs would fare in their first season after the departure of Mitch Marner broke up their longtime Core Four — which also included John Tavares, Auston Matthews and William Nylander. And a cursory look at the standings or playoff projections might cause you to think the Leafs are badly missing their former star playmaker. But although Toronto has slid into a coin-flip to make or miss the playoffs, they’re scoring more now than they did last season (3.30 goals per game vs. 3.26).

Instead, the Leafs’ problems have come on the goal-prevention side, where they’ve slipped from eighth to 19th, while allowing more shots per game with a worse save percentage. Whether that’s a fixable problem or not might depend on how soon the Leafs can get healthy with many defenders and goalies currently on the shelf — though backup goalie Dennis Hildeby has acquitted himself mostly well after being pressed into duty, and the team’s play has ticked up recently.

Nemesis: Florida Panthers. There’s a certain logic to the fact that the Panthers, who knocked the Leafs out of the playoffs in both 2023 and 2025, are Toronto’s biggest impediment to making the postseason this time around. With both teams next to each other in the wild-card mix, the Leafs make it only 45% of the time when the Panthers also get in, but that figure rises to 59% in the simulations where Florida fails to get in.

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Dennis Hildeby makes big-time save vs. Sharks

Dennis Hildeby robs Sharks with save

Playoff chances: Preseason: 66% | Current: 15%

St. Louis headed up our list of not-so-pleasant surprises about a month ago, and things haven’t really improved since. While the Blues did technically piece together two separate winning streaks in late November and early December — their first since early October — those lasted only a couple of games apiece before new losing streaks unfolded.

The game remains a huge struggle for this team at both ends of the ice, with St. Louis ranking dead last in goals per game (2.27) over the past month and next-to-last in goals per game differential (-1.13) as well. The Blues ran back basically the same group that powered last season’s remarkable late-season surge, but they’ve recaptured exactly none of that magic again. Recent injuries like the one that sent Jordan Kyrou to IR add to the misery.

Nemesis: Winnipeg Jets. The Blues face a massively uphill battle to make the top three in the Central — whose top two slots will almost certainly be occupied by the dominant Avalanche and Stars — which means duking it out for one of the wild-card spots in the West. And who happens to be tied with them in that race? None other than the Jets, last year’s President’s Trophy winners who have hit their own snag (as detailed above).

In simulations where Winnipeg makes it, St. Louis’ playoff chances fall to 10%; in those where the Jets miss out, the Blues make it 21% of the time.

Playoff chances: Preseason: 62% | Current: 42%

The Rangers are another team who probably can’t be too shocked about borderline playoff chances, given that they missed the field entirely last season. But it was just the fifth time the franchise had been on the outs since the 2005 lockout — and there was the hope that, with a new coach (Mike Sullivan replacing Peter Laviolette) and some distance from the drama of last season, the Broadway Blueshirts would reload and make a postseason return.

So far, that’s still a work in progress: While the uncharacteristically poor goaltending and defense of last season is improved, thanks mainly to Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick playing like their old selves again, the Rangers still rank just 29th in scoring with subdued production from the likes of Artemi Panarin, J.T. Miller, Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck and elite puck-moving defenseman Adam Fox on IR. This is the lowest the Rangers have ever ranked in goals per game in their history.

Nemesis: New Jersey Devils. Who else could it be here but the Rangers’ familiar rivals from the Battle of the Hudson? Neither team is in great shape — we’ll get to New Jersey soon enough — but both are right on the cusp of either the top three in the Metro or the final wild-card spot, the very definition of the playoff bubble. New York makes it only 33% of the time when New Jersey does as well, but 48% of the time when the Devils don’t.

Playoff chances: Preseason: 54% | Current: 36%

After making the playoffs last season for the first time since 2017, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to think 2025 marked the start of a string of postseason berths for the Sens’ young core with Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, Jake Sanderson, Drake Batherson and Shane Pinto. A mediocre start to 2025-26, however, is threatening to turn that breakthrough into a mere one-off.

In addition to key injuries like the one that kept Tkachuk sidelined for more than a month after hand surgery, Ottawa has gotten the league’s worst goaltending from its tandem of Linus Ullmark and Leevi Merilainen, with an abysmal .871 save percentage between the pair. The Sens were always going to be in for a playoff fight like last season, but they’ve got a lot of work to do to overcome their deficit this time around.

Nemesis: Detroit Red Wings. In a lot of ways, Detroit is trying to do what Ottawa did last season — ending their own long playoff drought behind a good young core of up-and-coming talent. Now the two Atlantic teams have to tangle over a playoff spot (whether in the division or as a wild card) that probably can only belong to one of them.

Ottawa’s playoff chances are 42% in the subset of simulations where Detroit can’t hang onto its postseason position, but 27% in the sims where the Red Wings hold on and make it.

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Tim Stutzle capitalizes on the power play

Tim Stutzle capitalizes on the power play

Playoff chances: Preseason: 48% | Current: 7%

Maybe it’s debatable exactly how “shocking” Vancouver missing the playoffs would be, since they didn’t actually make it last year, either — although that was truly surprising at the time, given the magnitude of their young talent (led by Quinn Hughes). Still, the models and oddsmakers thought there was a decent chance Vancouver would bounce back from a down 2024-25 by tapping back into their rising stars’ potential and maybe getting a better performance (and better health) from Thatcher Demko between the pipes.

But that has decidedly not been what happened, with the Canucks’ season spiraling since early November. Over the past month, no team has a worse win-loss record, and only two are worse on GPG differential. With their playoff hopes all but extinguished, attention in Vancouver has turned to the trade rumor mill — a prelude to Friday’s trade that sent Hughes to the Minnesota Wild — showing just how far they’ve fallen in a short time.

Nemesis: Utah Mammoth. It’s not a very high-leverage rivalry from Vancouver’s perspective: Utah making the playoffs versus missing drops the Canucks’ odds from 8.4% to 3.7%, because the Canucks are in bad shape either way (even more so after the Hughes swap).

But they do have the surprising potential to play spoiler for the Mammoth: Utah’s playoff odds in those few simulations where Vancouver does sneak in are about half what they are in the ones where the Canucks miss out (32.2% vs. 16.5%).

Playoff chances: Preseason: 45% | Current: 40%

New Jersey gets an honorary spot here because the betting markets were higher on them going into the season than Elo was — mainly because it didn’t know how much the Devils’ late slide was due to Jack Hughes‘ season-ending shoulder surgery in early March.

The hope was that a healthy Hughes would re-elevate an offense that slipped to 20th in goals per game by the end of last season. Of course, the irony is that Hughes would get off to a great start this season (10 goals and 20 points in 17 games) before hurting himself again — this time a “freak” finger injury that has kept him out since Nov. 12, over which time the Devils are bottom-six in goal differential and have seen their playoff odds fall from 74% to 40%.

Hughes won’t be back until January at the earliest, and New Jersey has to go into battle with an offense and defense that both rank 20th or worse until then.

Nemesis: New York Rangers. By definition, these nemeses come in pairs — so the Devils’ gains are the Rangers’ losses and vice versa.

In this case, New Jersey makes the playoffs 46% of the time when New York misses out, versus 31% when the Blueshirts get in. And for the Devils, roughly half of their 40% playoff chances come from getting in as a top-three squad from the Metro (like they did last season), with the other half coming from snagging a wild card. It’s nice to have options!