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 3: Randy Carlyle is here to stay

Fans have been asking for Carlyle’s head basically since the day he was re-hired, but never more than during the past two months. During that time the Ducks have been not only terrible, but almost irredeemably so. There have been very few feel good stories for the Ducks, the stars (excluding Gibson) haven’t shown up most nights, and the Ducks have an uncanny ability to show some promise, before doing something that sets them back even further than before they showed any positives.

A lot of the blame for the team’s failures over the past couple seasons lies at the feet of Randy Carlyle in the fans eyes, the team plays a slow, boring brand of hockey, they bleed shots every game, and their reliance on physicality as opposed to skill has led to them being on the wrong side of the ref’s whistles more times than not. Chants of Fire Carlyle have serenaded the team during home games prior to their most recent road trip, and upon returning home the Ducks were met with an even worse sound, the sound of silence. It seems like the Ducks fans just don’t care at this point, and it’s not hard to see why given the state of the team.

Despite that, Bob Murray has given his vote of confidence to Randy, saying they weren’t considering a coaching change after the Ducks 12th straight loss about 2 weeks ago. The Ducks since then have won 2 games, both unimpressive wins, against bad teams before returning to their losing ways against the Islanders, and having arguably their worst game of the entire season against the Blues. Since the new year the Ducks are 2-6-2, and in their last 16 games are 2-10-4, If after that run, your coach is still getting a vote of confidence, it’s hard to imagine what it would take for the Ducks to move on from Carlyle during the season. Short of another Boudreau situation where a coach that is viewed as “Cannot miss” becomes available, Murray seems content to let this season play out.

Why It’s Okay

There’s three reasons why this is okay to me. Firstly, Randy’s contract is up after this season, yes there is a team option for the 2019-20 season, but short of a miraculous run that culminates in a long, successful playoff run, I cannot see Murray exercising that option, rumor has it that Carlyle has been offered a head office position once he hangs up his coaching skates, and I think one reason he hasn’t fired him yet, is he wants to keep that relationship good, so he can transition to a Front Office role, once he’s retired.

Secondly, Carlyle’s team is playing terribly, and if the Ducks are serious about retooling, and want to get a high draft pick, the best way to do that is by playing poorly and ending up higher in the lottery. Rather than potentially ending up just outside, or even worse, in the playoff picture but only to end up embarrassed in the first round (again) because the team gets a small jolt once new energy is brought into the locker room.

Thirdly, there have been 5 coaching changes in the league this season, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Edmonton, Los Angeles and Chicago have all bid farewell to coaches who didn’t appear to be getting the job done. None of those coaching changes have made a huge positive difference for the teams. Honestly, the changes overall have been barely there record wise.  Below is a list of those 5 teams, the first record listed is their record when they fired their coach, the second record listed is their record since firing their coach.

Los Angeles

4-8-1—16-18-3

Chicago

6-6-3—12-16-6

St. Louis

7-9-3— 15-13-2

Edmonton

9-10-1— 14-14-2

Philadelphia

12-15-4— 8-8-2

What you’ll notice is that bad teams, continue to play bad, regardless of who is behind the bench. The biggest improvement out of all of the teams is Los Angeles, and they’re still one point out of last place in the entire league. Despite being the first coaching change this season. Yes, the Ducks do need a new coach, but it might make more sense to make that change during the off-season and give the new coach, be it Dallas Eakins, or someone else, a full off-season, and training camp to get his team acclimated to him. Build the gameplan the way they want, rather than shoe-horning it in on the fly and potentially run the risk of losing the locker rooms ear, before you even have it in the first place.