Ducks Stat-urday: Casting Blame

While some of us have been sounding alarm bells for a while, the general consensus around this team right now is that they’re struggling. Several players that got off to hot starts have since cooled off, and goal scoring has dropped in turn.

Going into Friday’s game against Calgary, the Ducks have played 43 games, or just two games over a half-season in any other non-Bettman year. To get a sense of how our players have performed over this longer stretch of games, and to get a sense of whether we’re looking at career norms or not, let’s examine the forwards, defense, and goalies in comparison to last season and their career averages.

For the sake of laziness, I’ll simply double each player’s production to get an 82-game equivalent (yes, I realize this slightly overstates the numbers. But I’m lazy). We’ll use the handy numbers at Hockey Reference to calculate the 82-game averages for each player (except those with less than 82 GP). And for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just look at the basic counting stats. If you want Corsi or shooting percentage, go nuts. This will also only show Ducks with at least 10 GP for the Ducks.

Forwards

* G + A may not equal P due to rounding error

Starting at the top, we can see that Getz is indeed having a career year. Perry and Bobby are both on-pace for something similar to what they did last year, which is less than we expect from them but still near their normal levels. Obviously, if both of them had fallen off a cliff lately, we’d be looking at a statistically better season than normal. But as it is, the dropoff isn’t as terrible as it seems.

Teemu, on the other hand, is completely lost. After starting the season red-hot, the Finnish Flash is on-pace for one of his worst seasons ever. While Saku has thrived away from Selanne (and look at how far above their career norms both Winnik and Cogs are), Selanne’s complete ineffectiveness of late has really hurt this team. I used to think he was a lock for next season. Now I’m not so sure.

At this point, I should also mention just how well Matt Beleskey is playing. Dude hustles his ass off and though he has a tendency to lose his cool too early, I appreciate that you always get 100% when he’s on the ice. I love to see him and Etem on the ice because I know they’re going to work. At the same time, though, if Etem and Beleskey are together, I know they’re probably getting fourth line minutes.

Defense

* G + A may not equal P due to rounding error

As good of a season as Beauch is having, Cam is a complete black-hole of offense. The fact that he’s getting out-produced by Sbisa should shame him greatly. And I’m sick of the excuses for Cam. He’s paid well to be an offensive defenseman. Not to put up the fifth lowest point total among defenseman on the team. He needs to figure it out. Soon.

Aside from that, not much of a surprise on defense. Everyone else seems to be doing about what they should, at least in terms of contributing to the overall offense. It probably should be noted, though, that Souray hasn’t generated much offense in the past 6 weeks or so.

Goaltending

* Includes SEL

Viktor has made the transition from the Swedish Elite League better to the NHL better than I think just about anyone could have guessed. While he still has his issues that he needs to work out, the Ducks have a chance to win with either of their two goalies in net.

I find it interesting that Jonas is sporting a better GAA than his career average, but a worse save percentage than normal. I guess that means he’s seeing fewer shots this year than normal? Might be something worth investigating in a future Stat-urday post.

What say you, AC reader? Who’s responsible for this team’s offensive slump? Can we put any stock in most of the numbers we’re seeing this year?