Anaheim Ducks

What the Quant Says

209 goals, 31st in the league. Only Chicago scored fewer.

Anaheim created 2.255 expected goals per 60 at even strength, 30th, and took 42.7 per cent of the shot attempts at five-on-five and 39.7 per cent of the expected goals — both the worst figures in the league.

At five-on-five it scored 143 goals against an expectation of 144.0. The finishing was one goal short of neutral, 19th in the league. Nothing about the scoring was unlucky; there was simply nothing to finish.

Trevor Zegras had 23 goals and 65 points at 22, Troy Terry 23 and 61 in 70 games, Frank Vatrano 22 goals on 231 shots, Cam Fowler 38 assists from the blue line and Mason McTavish 43 points at 20.

Adam Henrique scored 22 goals in 62 games at 33, taking 54 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet — the closest chart of any forward who played half a season here. Alex Killorn arrives from Tampa with 27 goals and 64 points on an 18.9 per cent shooting year.

What the Scout Says

Two young centres, a winger having the best years of his career, and a fifth-round pick who became a first-line player.

Trevor Zegras is 6-0 and 185 and had 42 assists at 22. He is the first genuinely exciting player this club has drafted since Getzlaf and Perry, and the risk is not that the talent is imaginary — it is that four more seasons of losing teaches him habits a winning team then has to coach out.

Mason McTavish is 6-1 and 219 and took 42 per cent of his shots from inside 20 feet. He is big, heavy, better with the puck than his body suggests, and slow: the 9th percentile in top speed. The comparison being made locally is to a young Ryan Getzlaf, and the shape of the player supports it.

Troy Terry was 148th overall in 2015 and has 176 points in 274 games, all of them here. Frank Vatrano is undrafted and has 123 goals in 482 games — a career that was not given to him, and the most obvious trade chip on the roster.

Adam Henrique is 6-0 and 195 and scored 22 goals in 62 games at 33, more than half of his shots taken from inside 20 feet. Alex Killorn arrives at 33 with 805 games, two Stanley Cups and 466 points — the only man in this room who has won anything.

What the Quant Says

Anaheim allowed 3.417 expected goals per 60 at even strength — the worst rate in the league — and conceded 338 goals, also the most in it.

The gap between Anaheim and the second-worst club at suppressing chances is 0.372 expected goals per 60. Measured down from Columbus, that same gap reaches the twelfth-worst defence in the league. This club was not merely last. It was last by the width of a third of the league.

At five-on-five it conceded 224 goals against an expectation of 218.6, and the goaltending came in 5.4 goals worse than the chances it faced, 18th in the league. Both of those are ordinary numbers. The chances were not.

The five lowest five-on-five chance shares of the 525 skaters in this book were all recorded in an Anaheim uniform: Frank Vatrano at 36.4 per cent, Jakob Silfverberg at 36.6, Isac Lundeström at 37.0, Simon Benoit at 37.3 and Ryan Strome at 38.0. Benoit has gone to Toronto since.

Cam Fowler played all 82 games at 24:10 and finished minus-23, in a thirteenth season and an 893rd game without ever changing clubs. Radko Gudas arrives from Florida with a 57.2 per cent chance share, the 93rd percentile, and Ilya Lyubushkin from Buffalo, whose 20.7 mph top speed is the 1st percentile, the ninth-slowest reading in the league.

What the Scout Says

The longest continuous service of any defenceman in this book at one club, and three men signed to make the ice harder.

Cam Fowler was twelfth overall in 2010 and has 893 games without ever playing for another club. He has been through three rebuilds here and is the last man standing from the first of them. The question is not whether he is good — he is — but whether a defenceman of his age should absorb 24 minutes on a club that will not be good for another two years.

Radko Gudas is 6-0 and 208 with 843 career penalty minutes and the hardest shot in this edition, measured at 101.71 mph — two hundredths of a mile an hour clear of Tage Thompson, which is not a distinction to lean on. He is 33, and the role is not really about hockey: he is here to make a young roster harder to play against and to stop the other side taking liberties with Zegras.

Ilya Lyubushkin is undrafted out of Moscow with 279 NHL games, and his 20.7 mph top speed is the ninth-slowest in the league. He takes the hardest defensive minutes off the young defencemen; the cost is that he cannot help the club skate.

Robert Hagg has 204 career penalty minutes and took 79 per cent of his shots from beyond 40 feet. Urho Vaakanainen has 68 NHL games without a goal.

What the Quant Says

The club's goaltending came in 5.4 goals worse than the chances it faced, 18th in the league. On the club that conceded the most goals in hockey, the crease was the eighteenth-worst thing about it.

John Gibson went 14-31-8 with an .8991 and a 3.99 in 53 games, facing 1,983 shots. His career line across 431 games is a .9123, which is the argument that the season was the club and not the goaltender.

Lukas Dostal went 4-10-3 with a .9013 and a 3.78 in 19 games at 22, facing 679 shots, and his career line across 23 games is a .9022.

Anthony Stolarz played 19 games here and has gone to Florida.

Two goaltenders under .900 apiece, behind a defence that conceded chances at a rate no other club came within a third of a goal a game of. The remarkable thing is not that the save percentages were bad. It is that they were eighteenth.

What the Scout Says

A career .912 behind the worst defensive club in hockey, and a twenty-two-year-old learning in the same conditions.

John Gibson is 6-3 and 209 and faced 1,983 shots. He plays deep and square and reads the play as well as anybody in the league, and his career .9123 across 431 games is the strongest evidence on this page that the .899 was not his doing. There is a version of the next two seasons in which he is the most valuable thing Anaheim has to trade.

Lukas Dostal is 6-2 and 190 and played 19 games at 22 behind a club that conceded 338 goals. A .9013 in those conditions is better than it looks, and the club will find out what he is when there is a defence in front of him.

Anthony Stolarz has gone to Florida. Two goaltenders remain, with 454 NHL games between them and both of last season's save percentages under .902, which is a fact about the roster rather than about either man.

What the Quant Says

19th in the league at 6.752 expected goals per 60, over 4:52 a night — the second-fewest power-play minutes of any club. Ordinary by rate, and almost nobody drew a penalty.

Mason McTavish scored 7 power-play goals at 20, Troy Terry 5, Frank Vatrano 5, Cam Fowler 4, Trevor Zegras 4, Jakob Silfverberg 4, Adam Henrique 4 and Ryan Strome 1. Alex Killorn scored 3 elsewhere and Radko Gudas none.

Adam Henrique has 58 career power-play goals in 830 games, the most on the roster, and Alex Killorn 38 in 805. Cam Fowler has 36 in 893, Jakob Silfverberg 28 in 739, Ryan Strome 26 in 703 and Frank Vatrano 16 in 482.

The unit's leading scorer last season was a twenty-year-old who had played 89 NHL games. That is either the most encouraging sentence on this page or the most damning one, and it is probably both.

What the Scout Says

Nineteenth by rate, and the leading scorer on it was twenty years old.

Mason McTavish scored 7 power-play goals in his second season and has 7 in 89 career games. He works from the paint rather than the perimeter and is heavy enough to stay there.

Adam Henrique has 58 career power-play goals in 830 games, the most on the roster by twenty, and scored 4 from in tight. Alex Killorn arrives with 38 in 805, having spent a decade standing in front of goaltenders in Tampa.

Cam Fowler has 36 career power-play goals in 893 games and takes the point; 69 per cent of his shots came from beyond 40 feet. Troy Terry and Frank Vatrano scored 5 apiece from the circles.

There is a unit here. There is not yet a reason for anybody to fear it.

What the Quant Says

32nd in the league at 8.386 expected goals against per 60 — the worst penalty kill in hockey — over 5:14 a night, ordinary volume. Anaheim did not take an unusual number of penalties. It could not survive the ones it took.

Brock McGinn scored 2 shorthanded goals and Isac Lundeström 1. Alex Killorn and Ilya Lyubushkin scored 1 apiece elsewhere.

Adam Henrique has 14 career shorthanded goals in 830 games, the most on the roster, and Jakob Silfverberg 11 in 739. Brock McGinn has 7 in 484 and Isac Lundeström 5 in 212.

Isac Lundeström took 2 penalty minutes in 61 games and held a 37.0 per cent chance share, the third-lowest in this book, which is what the hardest defensive assignment on the worst defensive club costs a man.

Radko Gudas arrives with 843 career penalty minutes. He is here to make the unit harder to play against, and the record says the unit could not have been easier.

What the Scout Says

The worst penalty kill in the league, and the two men who did it best are both past thirty-three.

Adam Henrique has 14 career shorthanded goals in 830 games and Jakob Silfverberg 11 in 739 — between them a quarter of a century of doing this job, on a unit that finished last.

Isac Lundeström took 2 penalty minutes in 61 games and was handed the hardest starts on the club. That is what a penalty killer looks like when the club around him cannot defend: he never takes one, and he is on the ice for everything.

Brock McGinn has 7 career shorthanded goals in 484 games. Radko Gudas has 843 career penalty minutes and Sam Carrick 214 in 163 games.

Anaheim has added weight and taken nothing away. Whether the unit improves is a coaching question, because the personnel answer has already been bought.