Anaheim Ducks: Is Ryan Getzlaf the Best Playmaker of the Last Decade?

Anaheim Ducks fans have been “wowed” by Ryan Getzlaf’s passing skills since he arrived in 2005. Eddy Jones analyzes how the Ducks captain stacks up against his peers.

Ryan Getzlaf has long been considered one of the best playmakers in the National Hockey League. He’s easily been the best passer on the Anaheim Ducks for the last decade.

How does he really stack up against the best of the best over the same period? That’s the question we are going to try and answer, to determine if Ryan Getzlaf really the is the best passer of the last decade.

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Charting the Evidence

We can’t just look at total assists when analyzing this question. If we did then players like Connor McDavid and Johnny Gaudreau would be at a severe disadvantage because of the difference in games played between them and players like Getzlaf and Nicklas Backstrom.

The best stat to put them on a level playing field would be to use assists per 60 minutes played (A/60). This is because players can vary drastically in the number of games played or their average time on ice. Thus, A/60 puts them on a level playing field and allows for an equal comparison.

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As we can see from the chart above, Mathew Barzal has the highest ranked A/60 over the last decade. However, he has only played a total of 84 games over his career. Even though A/60 equalizes the field, saying Mathew Barzal is the best passer over the previous decade is difficult when he’s only played in one of those ten seasons.

We can add a condition in which players who have only played in at least 400 games are included. This way we have players who have played in at least half of the last ten seasons. Which is a better sample size to determine the decades best passer. This eliminates Mathew Barzal Connor McDavid, Marc Savard, Mitch Marner, Evgeni Kuznetsov, Johnny Gaudreau, and Artemi Panarin. The new chart looks like this.

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The updated chart has Getzlaf ranked as the sixth best in terms of A/60. When you look at the names ranked in front of him it’s hard to dispute. If we were to answer the question based solely on A/60 then Getzlaf isn’t the best passer of the last decade. That accolade would go to Sidney Crosby, who only has a marginal lead over Henrik Sedin.

However, we can also determine the best impact passer of the last decade as well. That would be the player who has the most primary assists per 60 minutes played. If we run it the same way as last time, the chart without a condition for games played is as follows.

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Based on these results, Getzlaf is ranked even higher then he was for total assists per 60. He sits behind three of the leagues best players in McDavid, Crosby, and Malkin. Once again, we can add a condition in which players who have only played in at least 400 games are included. This eliminates Connor McDavid, Marc Savard, Mitch Marner, Evgeni Kuznetsov, Johnny Gaudreau, Artemi Panarin, William Nylander, and Robert Nilsson. With this condition in place, the new chart looks like this:

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Ryan Getzlaf jumps up the 3rd on this list, behind only Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. It again provides results that he may not be the very best passer of the last decade, but he firmly sits top 5 among some of the best players in the NHL.

Conclusion

It’s important to remember that A/60 and A1/60 are just a small look into passing as a whole. There are different ways to evaluate a player’s passing ability and there are sure to be better ways in the future. Using these two statistics as the basis for our analysis shows that Ryan Getzlaf isn’t the best passer of the last decade, but he should be considered as one of the top five.

If you are interested in following up on this analysis Corsica has pretty much all of the data you would need to formulate your own results. However, with new statistics coming available such as setups, which are calculated each time a pass results in a shot attempt, the debate on who is the leagues best playmaker will continue to be had.

We’d love to hear your opinion on who the decades best playmaker is. Be sure to let us know in the comments and on social media.