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For those that have missed this segment, this was a weekly series on Anaheim Calling to take a look at how various players on the team fared. I will arbitrarily rank a random topic along on a scale of 1 to 5 stars and place different Ducks within the categories based on their performance over the first round series. I wanted to take my time after the first round before diving into the numbers and providing this rankings.
My reasoning for the rating of the Ducks will be based on stats, results, and probably some of my bias. My reasoning for the rating of the random topic will be completely biased #dealwithit. I will elaborate more on some players than others. I expect everyone to probably disagree with me on both topics and all of my takes will be outed. If there is something you would like me to rank please feel free to leave it in the comments. On to the fun!
KEY ASPECT TO THIS RANKING: I am going to completely ignore all goal based stats and only utilize 5v5 shot based stats to see which lines and D pairs did a good job at driving play. We all know that the Ducks were swept and by goal based metrics looked terrible doing it. So lets see which lines and pairs were just a bit unlucky.
The games included in the ratings for this week are all 4 first round games against the Sharks.
With this being the final ranking of the 2017-2018 playoffs, I figured I would rank the different things I will be doing in the offseason. Like past weeks, these rankings are 100% correct, and no one can tell me otherwise.
5 Stars: Sleep
Now that the season is over, I will no longer have a podcast to record after every game keeping me up until around 1 am after every game. I am definitely going to miss doing 3-4 pods a week and interacting with everyone, but I am happy I can finally catch up on some sleep.
No Ducks were as good as sleep in the first round. Some of their stats might warrant a 5 star rating, but out of principle I can’t do it with them getting swept.
4 Stars: Surfing
Now that the time change has happened and there are no more Ducks games, I can surf after work again! There is something so relaxing about getting in the water at the end of a long and stressful day regardless of the quality of waves.
Rickard Rakell - Ryan Getzlaf - Corey Perry - I know it might seem weird to give a line that had 0 5v5 goals 4 stars, but like I said in the intro these ratings are ignoring goal based metrics. I am trying to get a feel for which lines controlled play in the series and that is something this line did in the series. They had a 59% CF%, 54% SCF%, and 55% HDCF%.
Andrew Cogliano - Ryan Kesler - Jakob Silfverberg - Basically copy and paste what I said for the 5v5 play of the RPG line. 59% CF%, 55% SCF%, and 58% HDCF%.
Hampus Lindholm - Josh Manson - Well this pair was beastly per usual. 64% CF%, 67% SCF%, and 75% HDCF%. They seemed to be fairly unlucky in the 4 games played in this series. I guess that is sometimes just how it goes.
3 Stars: Going to the Gym
Going to the gym is the perfect 3 star rating. It is both a great and a terrible thing. I am not exactly a gym rat, but seeing as I have this wedding thing coming up in November it is about time I get myself back into good shape.
John Gibson - John Gibson was slightly below average with a -0.51 GSAA and a .889 sv%, but the Ducks defense did not do him any favors. The expected sv% of an average goaltender facing the shot quality that Gibson faced would have been a .893 sv%. Now you might think this should get him a 2 star rating due to him below average. Well this is where I apply my personal bias and say that that expected sv% is higher than it should be based on the quality of shot against.
Francois Beauchemin - Brandon Montour - I am going to use this as a thank you to Francois “Boom Boom” Beauchemin. This may not have been his best year as a Duck or his best playoff run as a Duck, but I am happy that he has retired a Duck. There are so many great memories I personally have of Beauchemin, with the top of my list being his fight with Iginla in game 6 of the ‘06 1st Round at the pond, which a 15 year old Jake Rudolph was in the crowd for. So thank you Boom Boom for your years of entertainment! Oh, their stats were: 54% CF%, 50% SCF%, and 51% HDCF%.
2 Stars: Dealing with the fact that Randy Carlyle will still be the Ducks Coach
This could very easily be a 1 star rating. Once this news came out I was infuriated and pissed off. It defies all logic that Randy Carlyle was retained as the Ducks head coach.
Derek Grant & J.T. Brown - These two were on the 4th line for the entirety of the series and posted decent numbers for a Ducks 4th line, but were still below average. 46% CF%, 42% SCF%, and 57% HDCF%. The only point I will make about this line outside of the stats is they should have gotten some more ice time. We saw flashes from them, and maybe with more ice time we would have seen them make a better impact on the series.
1 Star: Not Having Ducks Hockey to watch
This is without a doubt the worst part of the offseason
Nick Ritchie - Adam Henrique - Ondrej Kase - I made the statement on a podcast prior to this series, that this line would be the most important line for the Ducks in the series. Well turns out my prediction was right. They were terrible and the Ducks got swept. While this line was on the ice the Ducks had a 33% CF%, 35% SCF%, and 12.5 HDCF%. That is just terrible.
Andy Welinski - Marcus Pettersson - Ya they were really not great over the course of the series: 37% CF%, 33% SCF%, and 33% HDCF%
Unranked: Watching Baseball
I enjoy watching Angels baseball over the summer, but I know baseball is somewhat controversial with some hockey fans so I will leave it as unranked.
Kevin Bieksa (1 Game Played), Jason Chimera (2 Game Played), Antoine Vermette (2 Games Played), and Ryan Miller (1 period played).
*All skater stats are from Naturalstattrick unless stated otherwise. All goalie stats are from Corsica unless stated otherwise
I want to say thank you to everyone that commented on these articles or interacted with me about the articles throughout the season. I am happy that this little dumb idea for a weekly article on the website was enjoyable for you, and I plan to continue it next season. Let me know if you have any recommendations or comments on how I can improve the series next season!