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Anaheim Ducks fans may hate me for this thread. Today, I'm taking a look at why the Ducks are struggling so much this season and how they could change it. 1/?
The Ducks have the third-most offensive zone faceoff opportunities in the league this season. Despite that, they are tied for 14th in offensive zone faceoff win percentage (52.7%).
It gets worse. Even with all of those offensive zone starts, Anaheim doesn't take advantage of that time, averaging the fourth-fewest shots per game (27). The three teams with fewer shots per game have a worse OZ faceoff %.
Just by conventional wisdom, more offensive zone starts should generate more shots and more goals. But the Ducks are a statistical outlier in that regard.
"What about on the power play?" you might be wondering. Good question. The Ducks' power play is practically non-existent, scoring on a league-worst 6.7% of their power play opportunities. Part of the problem their again goes back to their faceoff rate.
Anaheim has a 47.4% faceoff percentage while on the power play. So somehow, despite an overall 52.7% win percentage in the offensive zone, they get WORSE in the faceoff dot with the man advantage.
To Anaheim's credit, they've been excellent defensively and in net. The Ducks allow 2.54 goals against per game, the seventh-fewest against in the league.
HOWEVER, of the ten teams with the fewest GA/G this season, Anaheim is the only team scoring fewer than 2.5 goals per game.
HOWEVER, of the ten teams with the fewest GA/G this season, Anaheim is the only team scoring fewer than 2.5 goals per game.
In fact, based on point percentage, Anaheim and Arizona are the only two teams of those 10 who are outside of playoff position. Coincidentally, Arizona scores the third-fewest goals per game in that bunch.
So who should be shooting the puck? Ideally, it would be the younger players you would expect to be the centerpieces of the team going forward, in particular Max Jones (24th overall pick in 2016) and Sam Steel (30th overall in 2016).
Jones has one goal this season while averaging just under 13 minutes of ice time per game (16th among ANA forwards). He's recorded four shots in six games.
Steel averages just over 15 minutes of ice time per game (7th among ANA forwards) but has yet to score a goal this season. He averages 0.77 shots per game.
Is it a coaching problem? I don't know. I'm not in the locker room & haven't followed ANA closely enough to know the answer to that question. What I do know is that they have the defense and goaltending to be competitive & make the playoffs, but they need to shoot the puck.
If you're still reading this, thank you for reading and I hope you got something out of it. If nothing else, enjoy this glorious John Gibson hair flip.
