Anaheim Ducks: 4 Hard Truths The Ducks Face (And Why It’s Okay)

The Anaheim Ducks appear to be at a franchise crossroads. And while that in and of itself is a scary thought, maybe things need to fall apart in order to be put back together right.

I don’t care if you’re the most optimistic fan in the entirety of the world, no team is perfect, no team is without its issues, and no team is without their own hard truths to face. A teams ability to traverse the hard times, the slippery roads so to speak, is what separates the great teams from the Edmonton Oilers. (Sorry Oilers fans, but I think even you’d agree with me at this point). Equally important is a fans ability to realize that even though things may look bleak, that things are seemingly at rock bottom, leaving you with a feeling of frustration, anger, sadness, and desperation, there is (usually) light at the end of the tunnel. And just about every situation has some sort of a silver lining, even if it’s hard to see initially.

That’s why I’m here today, I want to give you guys, my fellow Ducks fans, four pills that are hard to swallow, ranging from the “eh that wasn’t so bad” level of hard to swallow, to “I really really don’t want to admit that, and I’m only on stage one of the seven stages of grief”. But I don’t want things to be all doom and gloom, so while I may not have the most fun things to share with you today, I want to give each of them as much of a silver lining as I possibly can… Although no promises because I’m admittedly cynical, but I will do my best for you all.

Number 1: This Core’s Window is Closed

Look, I’ve been cautiously optimistic for a long long time. I’ve thought “maybe just maybe” Bob Murray could pull a rabbit out of his hat, and pull this team together, from the depths of despair and bring them to the promised land once more. Give the Ducks who have given their entire career to this point, and the veterans chasing a Cup, one last hoorah before riding off into the sunset. But it’s time to face the music that this team is simply not going to get things done in its current state.

As it currently stands, the Ducks spend almost 1/3 of their cap space on 3 players, (Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and Ryan Kesler) who are all 33 years old or older. It’s not uncommon for a team to have 20+ million tied up in your franchise players, it’s actually pretty common. But the age of those players is a major concern. When you look at the last 10 Stanley Cup Champions, and you look at the best player on those teams, the oldest one is Alex Ovechkin who is similarly aged to Getzlaf and Perry, but his second best player was a 26-year-old, point per game player and his 3rd best player was a 30 year old perennial 70 point player who is on fire in recent playoff years.

“But Jon”, I hear you say “The Red Wings won 11 years ago, and they were very old!” You’re not wrong, they were an older team, and they did win a Cup. They were an incredibly well-built team from top to bottom, and they won a Cup, and went to the Cup finals after that! Since then however, the Red Wings have yet to make it past round 2, and are in Salary Cap purgatory with a roster that was hobbled together to compete as long as possible, not worrying about long term ramifications. The Ducks don’t have that luxury, they don’t have a legacy the length of the Red Wings, a prolonged rebuild could honestly be a nail in the coffin for a small market team like the Ducks, so while the Red Wings are an outlier, I don’t feel they are comparable to the Ducks regardless.

Why It’s Okay

Well, I won’t lie to you, it’s not ever fun to say “Well, we’re not winning a Cup” but big picture this is not a bad thing for the Ducks. As it stands, the reason that the Ducks have built so heavily around the aging core, is because they face the issue that every long in the tooth competitive team runs into, they’re not drafting in the first half of the first round of the draft. It’s incredibly difficult to get game-breaking elite talent when you’re drafting in the 20’s every draft. Yes, you can get players like John Gibson, Rickard Rakell, and Brandon Montour. Get an inexplicable dropper like Cam Fowler, but while all of them are great in their own way, none (outside of Gibson) are what I would consider elite talents. And it can’t be overstated that goaltenders are a different breed, it’s so difficult to predict how they will turn out, you might as well flip a coin.

If there’s one thing you cannot take away from Bob Murray, it’s that he’s a phenomenal drafter. He rarely misses on his picks in the first round, and that’s even more impressive when you factor in the late position in the first round he’s picking. As it stands currently, Bob Murray has only selected inside the top 10 twice in his tenure (Only one being his own pick). The first was Hampus Lindholm who has been a revelation, and it’s not as though Lindholm was the consensus pick. The great Bob McKenzie had Lindholm as the 7th best defenseman on the board, behind Ryan Murray, Griffin Reinhart, Matt Dumba, Morgan Rielly, Jacob Trouba, Olli Maatta, and Cody Ceci.

Murray went a bit off the board and took Lindholm over 3 of those players, and it’s not hard to argue that Lindholm is the best of those 7 altogether (2nd best at worst). The other wasn’t quite as big of a home run with Nick Ritchie, but it’s important to note that the 2014 draft was quite top-heavy, and had more “boom or bust” picks than most other drafts. At 10 when Ritchie was selected, there was 4 other players selected in the next 20 picks who have been better in my opinion. So no he didn’t knock it out of the park, but he hit a nice double by taking someone who was a higher floor, but lower ceiling.

The point being that if Murray concedes that this season is not meant to be a winner, and tries to build a bit for the future, his track record (And this upcoming draft which has a pretty talented top half with a few that could really change a teams fortunes long term) indicates the Ducks could enter next season with a blue-chip prospect to replace that aging core, and could help pry that window open sooner than later.

Number 2: Gibson Likely Won’t Take Home The Vezina

Please put the pitchforks down. I know full well he deserves it, and I too will be upset if he doesn’t win the Vezina if he continues to carry this team. But it’s important to get this out there before we all have our hopes crushed. John Gibson is having an amazing season, one that will undoubtedly be remembered for a long long time even just from the first half of the season, he’s carrying this team on his back, and they will only go as far as he carries them. But historically, the Vezina trophy doesn’t take into account how much you mean to your team. Yes, there are a few outliers, but in large, there’s two keys to winning the Vezina. You need to either A: Be on a great team, which means you win 35+ games as the starting goaltender, And/Or you have a absurd save percentage.

As it stands, in the past 10 years there has only been one Vezina Trophy winner, who was on a team that missed the playoffs. That was Sergei Bobrovsky, in 2012-13 AKA: the lockout shortened season, in that season Bobrovsky managed a .932 save percentage, he had his team just on the outside of the playoff picture (tied in points with the Wild for the last playoff spot) and despite playing the lion share of the 48 games (38 to be exact) his 21 Wins, accounted for all but 3 of the teams total wins. His .932 save percentage is good for 2nd among goalies who played 30 or more games since 2012-13.

As it stands right now, John Gibson has a .919 save percentage on the year, his team is still in the playoff hunt, but that’s almost exclusively due to Gibson, and the teams inexplicable hot start. They’re seemingly free-falling at this point, which makes the playoffs more and more unlikely by the day, also not helping his case is that while he’s still carrying the team on his back, he can’t stop 40 pucks a night, it’s not reasonable to expect, and it’s hurting his stats. His save percentage is taking a hit due to the incredible rough patch the Ducks are currently on. As it stands, 4 of the last 6 starts for John Gibson have resulted in a sub-.900 save percentage. That’s not going to help him separate from the pack. It’s also worth pointing out that other goaltenders with more name value, are putting up similar production, (albeit on significantly better teams). It’s going to be difficult to beat out an Andrei Vasilevskiy, Fredreik Andersen, or Carey Price to win a Vezina.

Why It’s Okay

There is hope. Gibson recently won the mid-season award from the Professional Hockey Writers Association for the Vezina, which is encouraging, there’s also the fact that Gibson has faced far more shots than any of the other contenders, with the next most busy goaltender being Marc-Andre Fleury who has faced more than 100 fewer shots (Despite starting in 3 more games and having over 250 more minutes on the ice). If Gibson can continue to play the way he has, (Which is a big if) then he’ll almost force their hand into giving it to him, and the silver lining here, is that while #LoseForHughes is seemingly in full swing, we Ducks fans have something to get behind, to cheer for, and to campaign for for the rest of this season. #GibbyTheGoat should be trending among Ducks Fans and if the rest of this season is a wash, we can’t let it get lost in the shuffle that we are truly experiencing greatness and one of the best performances by a goaltender in recent history.

Number 4: The Ducks Will Make Some Moves… They Won’t Be Flashy, They won’t be Blockbusters

It seems inevitable at this point that the Ducks will make some moves, there’s just no benefit to them standing pat, but one thing that I think Ducks fans should understand, and prepare themselves for, is that, while we all would love to see the Ducks in on the huge names available, or shopping their big names, it’s simply not feasible for the most part. The reasoning for that is that the Ducks are in kind of a pickle when it comes to their cap situation.

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As it stands at this moment, the Ducks barely have any cap space, (Currently projected to have under $100,000 actually), and once you factor in the return of Corey Perry, they’re in a situation where they’re basically strapped. Ondrej Kase will likely go onto LTIR giving them a bit of relief, Ryan Kesler could end up there as well as there’s currently no time-table for his return, and once Chad Johnson is no longer needed he too will likely be dumped (If the Ducks don’t move Ryan Miller instead which I personally think is unlikely). The fact is the Ducks roster situation is less than ideal, and even more, frustrating, the main culprits for the cap crisis, aren’t movable. Both Ryan Kesler and Corey Perry at this point in their careers are not worth their contracts, and as such outside of giving up a significant asset (Similar to the price Detroit paid to get Arizona to take Pavel Datsyuk off their hands, which would also require their blessing since they both hold No Movement Clauses).

Outside of that, the Ducks don’t really have much that is significantly affecting their cap situation that is movable. Cam Fowler is one name that Ducks Fans have brought up as possible trade-fodder but to this point, I haven’t heard his name brought up by any insiders. Josh Manson is another who falls into that category. The remainder of the Ducks roster is making under 6.0 million a year, which is the low end of what elite players make. Therefore I don’t see a situation where the Ducks will bring in anyone that will get fans truly excited, and put butts into the seats off of their name alone.

Why It’s Okay

While the Ducks don’t look to be bringing in a player that will have fans salivating at watching them play this year, the Ducks could very well be making some moves that bring in assets that could turn into that caliber of player. Young prospects, and draft picks should be the top of the Ducks wish-list, and players like Jakob Silfverberg could fetch a 1st round pick., Jake Muzzin was just traded for a 1st round pick and two mid-range prospects. It’s hard to imagine that Cam Fowler wouldn’t surpass that in terms of a return. He’s locked up a lot longer, and is at a fairly competitive cap hit. Overall, we likely won’t see much of an impact to any of the moves that Bob Murray may make for quite some time, but with a bit of patience, and some shrewd dealing from GMBM, the Ducks could restock their cupboard with some blue-chip prospects that the organization is sorely missing currently.

The Ducks have some good young prospects on the way and there are ways for this team to be back competing for a Stanley Cup very soon. But it may not be a good feeling or pretty sight to accomplish what needs to be to bring that elusive second Cup to Anaheim.