Pucks of a Feather
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Fixing the Anaheim Ducks “Power Outage” on the Power Play

By Chris Bushell

ANAHEIM, CA - APRIL 14: Brandon Montour #26, Jakob Silfverberg #33, and Ryan Getzlaf #15 of the Anaheim Ducks celebrate a second period goal in Game Two of the Western Conference First Round against the San Jose Sharks during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Honda Center on April 14, 2018 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Debora Robinson/NHLI via Getty Images)
ANAHEIM, CA - APRIL 14: Brandon Montour #26, Jakob Silfverberg #33, and Ryan Getzlaf #15 of the Anaheim Ducks celebrate a second period goal in Game Two of the Western Conference First Round against the San Jose Sharks during the 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Honda Center on April 14, 2018 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Debora Robinson/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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SAN JOSE, CA: Rickard Rakell #67 of the Anaheim Ducks celebrates with teammates Ryan Getzlaf #15, Adam Henrique #14, Corey Perry #10 and Brandon Montour #26 after Rakell scored a goal against San Jose on April 16, 2018. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
SAN JOSE, CA: Rickard Rakell #67 of the Anaheim Ducks celebrates with teammates Ryan Getzlaf #15, Adam Henrique #14, Corey Perry #10 and Brandon Montour #26 after Rakell scored a goal against San Jose on April 16, 2018. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /

In 2017-18, the Anaheim Ducks scored 38 power play goals, second to last in the league. Our Chris Bushell offers up some advice to get the man advantage on track.

The game of the hockey can be described using multiple adjectives. Physical is one of those catch adjectives and one that has become synonymous with the Anaheim Ducks in recent years. A team wants to play hard and impose its will on their opponent night in and night out.

The goal remains the same, hurt the opposition where it hurts most, the scoreboard. A power-play that fires on all cylinders can achieve that goal. It’s an area that the Ducks need to drastically improve to be successful in 2018-19

This Isn’t New…

Much has been written about the Ducks struggles on the power play and rightfully so. Going back over the last five years the Ducks PP% has ranked: 22nd, 28th, 1st, 17th, and 23rd. The lone first-place finish in 2014-15 looks like the clear outlier. That season, however, was the year the Ducks went to Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. (Also the year the Ducks should have won the Cup but that’s another article).

This isn’t to say that power-play success has a direct result to success in the post-season. Buffalo had the number one ranked power play in 2016-17 and finished second to last in the Eastern Conference.

The last five Cup winners: Kings, Blackhawks, Penguins x2, and Capitals had either top 10 PP’s during the regular season (Pens and Caps) or turned it on in the post-season (Hawks and Kings). Anaheim needs to change a couple things going forward on the man advantage to help them get to the postseason and have it be a weapon come next spring.

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