Another NHL season is officially in the books. Kenny Marcial takes a final look back at the Anaheim Ducks in 2017-18 with his three-part series. Today, Part 3 – Help me forget, closes it out.
In the previous two parts, I reviewed the good and bad aspects of the 2017-2018 season. In the third part, I will be focusing on the things fans want to forget about. Like a coach who throws away the game tape of a lackluster performance, fans would like to throw out the following memories.
The injuries
Heading into the season, Anaheim Ducks fans understood several of the team’s most important players would be missing, at least initially. Two of the Ducks top four defensemen (Sami Vatanen, Hampus Lindholm) were on the shelf with shoulder injuries and the shutdown center, Ryan Kesler, was expected to miss half the season. What took everyone by surprise was the injuries that mounted up during the season.
More from Pucks of a Feather
- Who could the Anaheim Ducks consider presenting offer sheets to?
- Is Pierre-Luc Dubois on the cards for the rebuilding Anaheim Ducks?
- Making the case for the Anaheim Ducks to trade with the Edmonton Oilers
- Anaheim Ducks might benefit tremendously by trading John Gibson
- How close are the Anaheim Ducks to becoming contenders again?
- Patrick Eaves played only two games before his diagnosis of Guillain-Barré syndrome.
- Ryan Getzlaf took a puck to the face and ended up missing 26 games on the season.
- Cam Fowler hurt his knee and missed the entire playoffs. Surprisingly, he missed more games than Lindholm did in 2017-18.
- Ondrej Kase was practically decapitated by L.A.’s Kurtis MacDermid. His resulting injury caused Kase to miss 10+ games.
- Corey Perry injured his knee and missed 11 games.
- Kevin Bieksa broke his hand which caused him to miss several games down the stretch. To be honest, it was nice having him out of the lineup, but it was
The above injuries in addition to all the nagging maladies that we will never officially know about (among which I believe Silfverberg was dealing with), meant the Ducks didn’t stand a chance at having success in the playoffs.