Anaheim Ducks

What the Quant Says

221 goals, and 23rd in the league in creating chances at even strength at 2.38 expected goals per 60. The attack was poor and it was the better half of the club.

Troy Terry led the roster with 55 points, and the encouraging numbers all belong to men under 23: Mason McTavish 22 goals at 22, Leo Carlsson 20 at 20, Cutter Gauthier 20 in a first full season at 21. Frank Vatrano took 234 shots — the most on the club by a distance — and scored 21, a 9 per cent rate after 37 goals the season before.

Finishing was 2.2 goals above expectation, 14th, so none of this is bad luck in front of the net. The club creates 24th-most and scores accordingly. What it added over the summer — Mikael Granlund at 66 points and Chris Kreider at 22 goals — is aimed squarely here.

What the Scout Says

Three young forwards who can each do one thing very well and are still learning the rest.

Mason McTavish has a heavy, quick release and genuine hands in traffic, gets to the net and scores from there, and gives the puck back often enough that a 42 per cent chance share follows him around. Cutter Gauthier is a pure shooter — the release is heavy and fast off the pass and he will use it from anywhere, which is how a rookie in fourteen minutes took 190 shots — and the passing is the weaker half and always was. Leo Carlsson is the opposite of both: nothing is rushed, the puck is protected, and the play is made a beat late on purpose.

The veterans do specific jobs. Troy Terry holds pucks on the wall longer than a man of his size should and finds a seam that is not obviously there, and he avoids the wall defensively and gives up possession rather than take a hit. Frank Vatrano is thicker than he is tall and wins pucks against bigger wingers, and shoots from everywhere including places he should not. Alex Killorn's entire game is now below the goal line and in front of the net, and he is still difficult and disliked at 35. Mikael Granlund plays a patient small-area game and puts the puck through the space a killer leaves — and cannot win a puck back at all. Chris Kreider still has the stride that beats a defenceman wide from a standing start, and needs somebody to give him the puck in space, which is precisely what this club has not had.

What the Quant Says

263 goals conceded and dead last in the league at even-strength expected goals against, 3.00 per 60. Not 30th. Last.

Every defenceman on the roster is under water. Jackson LaCombe posted 48.4 per cent — the best figure on the blue line and the 35th percentile in the league — with 14 goals and 43 points in 22:18 a night at 24. Below him: Radko Gudas 46.2 at 35, Olen Zellweger 46.1, Jacob Trouba 44.9, Pavel Mintyukov 43.7 at 21, and Drew Helleson at 40.4 — the 2nd percentile in hockey.

Read the plus-minus column with care here. Helleson finished plus-6 with on-ice goals of 35-26 against an expected 24-38; Mintyukov finished minus-4 with 49-45 against an expected 37-48. Both ratings are the goaltender's work, and they say close to the opposite of what happened.

What the Scout Says

The single weakest group in this edition, and it fails in two different directions at once.

Jackson LaCombe is the exception and the reason for optimism: he leaves his own zone with the puck rather than passing it away, joins the rush as a genuine fourth attacker, and his 14 goals are a man arriving in the slot rather than a point-shot total. He does not clear a crease.

Neither does Olen Zellweger, whose skating is the best in the organisation — he escapes pressure by changing direction rather than out-running it — and who at 5-10 loses board battles to men who are simply bigger, so the puck goes in behind him. Pavel Mintyukov carries a puck out under control at 21, which is unusual, and the junior scoring has not survived contact with the league.

The weight is all old. Radko Gudas defends a rush by refusing to give ground, which works against forwards who go through him and not against the ones who go around, and at 35 more of them go around. Jacob Trouba still hits as hard as anybody in the league and the reads are a beat late, which a defenceman whose game is built on stepping up cannot afford. Drew Helleson will clear a crease and is beaten often enough to reach for his stick, at 47 penalty minutes in 56 games.

What the Quant Says

Lukas Dostál went 23-23-7 with a .9028 across 54 games, and the number is far better than it looks.

Anaheim's goaltending came in 27.5 goals better than the chances faced, 2nd in the league, in front of the worst chance-suppression in hockey. A .9028 behind that defence is a harder achievement than a .920 behind a good one, and at 24, in his first season as a starter, it is the most valuable thing in the organisation after Leo Carlsson.

Behind him there is nothing. Petr Mrázek stopped .8912 across two clubs last season and Ville Husso .8899. John Gibson was traded to Detroit to acquire Mrázek. If Dostál is hurt, this club's one elite quality disappears entirely.

What the Scout Says

The best player on the team, and the club has just traded away the man he replaced.

Lukas Dostál is 6-2 and 190, which is small now, and the game is athletic rather than structural — he covers the net by getting to the puck rather than by standing where it will be, and the lateral quickness is genuinely high-end. The rebound control is decent and could be better, which matters more than usual on a club conceding this many second chances. What separates him is temperament: two seasons of facing more danger than any goaltender in the league, and the start after a four-goal loss looks exactly like the one before it. That is the specific thing that decides whether a young goaltender survives a rebuild or is ruined by it.

Petr Mrázek is athletic and improvisational rather than technical, quick and flexible enough to make saves from positions he should not be in, which is exciting and is why the goals-against tends to be high. The rebound control is the weak point and the tracking through traffic has thinned at 33 — on this club, that is the exact problem. Ville Husso is 6-3 and plays deep and square and gets to a puck moved across the slot late, and the recovery to the second chance is slow. Neither is an insurance policy.

What the Quant Says

26th in the league at 6.29 expected goals per 60, over 4:46 a night. A bad unit that is not given much time.

McTavish led it with 6 power-play goals, Granlund had 5 on his two clubs, Terry 4, Carlsson 4. The structural problem is that the personnel is all one type: shooters who need to be found, and no distributor from the half-wall until Granlund arrived. That signing is the first genuine attempt to fix it, and it is a 33-year-old on a rebuilding club.

What the Scout Says

Shooters, and nobody to find them.

Cutter Gauthier's release from the circle is a real NHL weapon and Mason McTavish is very difficult to move from the net front, which is a workable pair of ideas. Troy Terry can run it from the half-wall and is the only man on the roster who reliably makes the seam pass, and he has been asked to be both the distributor and a shooting threat, which is one job too many.

Mikael Granlund is the summer's answer and it is the right idea: a patient half-wall player who holds the puck until a killer commits and puts it through the space he leaves. The line up front is a genuine question — Chris Kreider has scored from the net front on a good power play for a decade and cannot get there by himself any more. At the point, Jackson LaCombe walks the line well and neither Zellweger nor Mintyukov has the release to punish a killer who ignores him.

What the Quant Says

28th at 7.80 expected goals against per 60, over 5:01 a game — the 5th-heaviest workload in the league. Bad at the job and asked to do a lot of it, which is the worst pairing available and this club has it in both special teams.

The workload is self-inflicted. Radko Gudas took 86 penalty minutes, Frank Vatrano 80, Ryan Strome 70, Ross Johnston 72 in 43 games, and Jacob Trouba 66. That is five men over 65 on one roster. A club that concedes the most chances in hockey at even strength and then hands the opposition five minutes a night is choosing part of its own goals against.

What the Scout Says

The place where this club's discipline problem and its defensive problem meet.

There are willing men here. Alex Killorn kills, Ryan Poehling takes a defensive-zone draw without needing a winger to rescue him, Mikael Granlund reads and intercepts. Radko Gudas and Drew Helleson will both clear a crease and block a shot.

What ruins it is the volume. Five men took more than 65 penalty minutes — Gudas 86, Vatrano 80, Johnston 72 in 43 games, Strome 70, Trouba 66 — on a club that already concedes more chances at even strength than anybody in the league. A kill that is 28th in rate and 5th in workload is being asked to save a season from decisions made at even strength, and it cannot.