2 seasons ago (2017/18) the Ducks, Sharks and Kings were 9th, 11th and 12th in the league respectively, all finishing with 98-101 points and all making the playoffs. Now they're the bottom 3 teams in the Western Conference by a long shot. The Ducks and Kings were already there last year but San Jose decided to join them this year. What a dramatic shift from what California hockey was just a couple years ago.
With the Sharks and Kings I feel that both GM`s just remained far too loyal for far too long to those that got them the big prize. Obviously in Anaheim it`s been years since they won the cup but even in limited viewings, I could see that guys like Perry and Getz, while still being effective, were in quick decline.
The Sharks let Pavelski walk this past year while retaining Joe for yet another year, not wise IMO, Ducks let Perry go, wise IMO. Now, I have 0 information if they tried to retain Pavelski but when I look at teams like the one`s you mentioned, and let`s toss in the Hawks, it`s pretty remarkable that DS was able to keep this team competitive during the mini-rebuild/retool, yes the team missed the playoffs but not by much and we have seen what the team has done since those two missed PO seasons.
To be consistently competitive in the NHL is difficult, while the B`s are far from perfect, one thing I don`t ever feel about them is that the Owners (yes the owners) to the Prez and GM aren`t just interested in making the playoffs, they want the big prize, there was a long stretch as a fan of this team where it was pretty clear that wasn`t the case, they often made trades but not close to being the one`s they needed to make, constant contract squabbles and it all resulted in thousands of empty seats at the TD.