5 Takeaway: Ducks Welcome Back Fans with A Letdown
The Ducks wrapped up their two-game set against the Vegas Golden Knights with a Sunday matinee affair to follow up what was a horrendous Ducks performance on Friday night. The Ducks played a much better game in this second game, but the end result was yet another loss. There are some positives though to go along with plenty of negative takeaways, so let’s jump right in!
Welcome Back Ducks Fans
Friday’s game against was the first game since March of 2020 that the Ducks were allowed to have fans in the building, and it was a glorious sight to see. It was nowhere near a full building, with COVID restrictions limiting attendance to 10% of the capacity of Honda Center, but even with a limited amount of fans, it was a lot better than nothing.
This has without a doubt been a tough season to be an Anaheim Ducks fan. Not only has the product been sub-par on the ice and questionable in terms of office decisions, but zero fans have been in attendance to take in the small highs that have occurred at Honda Center this year, like for instance the March 19th game against the Coyotes that saw Drysdale debut for the Ducks and score his first goal, Zegras score his first goal, Getzlaf earn his 700th assist, and Miller surpass Hasek for 14th all-time on the NHL wins list.
Those games may not do a whole lot in the standings, but they can help the morale of a fan base that is in the dumps. Those are the games that people will remember for a lifetime and they happened in front of empty buildings. Hopefully, there will be one or two more of those moments in the future that Ducks fans can enjoy in person this year.
Ducks Welcome Back Fans With Their Worst Performance of the Season
Saying the first game against Vegas was ugly might actually be an understatement. This was one of the worst performances the Ducks have had this year and it sucks that this came in the first games fans were allowed at Honda Center. Let me just lay out from stats for you along with where they rank on the season for reference.
5v5:
1.02 xGF (5th Worst)
3.25 xGA (Worst)
23.97 xGF% (2nd Worst)
30 CF (4th Worst)
58 CA (2nd Worst)
34.09 CF (3rd Worst)
All SItuations:
1.58 xGF (6th Worst)
4.71 xGA (Worst)
25.11 xGF% (2nd Worst)
As you can see this was not a pretty game, the Ducks struggled to stop Vegas from getting shot quantity and quality, while also struggling to generate them on their own. That is not a recipe for success.
The biggest positive from this game if you are looking for them is John Gibson’s return to form, but we will get more into that later.
Break Up Drysdale and Manson
Dallas Eakins for some reason has become convinced that Drysdale and Manson make a good pairing or that Drysdale needs protection when he is on the ice, and as a result, he has been playing Drysdale on his weak side for the majority of his time in the NHL. Handedness is not the be-all-end-all when it comes to which side a defenseman plays, but there certainly are benefits to being a left-handed shot on the left side of the defense and a right-handed shot on the right side of the defense. The major benefit is that player is able to primarily break the puck out of the zone on their forehand.
As you can see in the clip above, Drysdale receives the puck down low with a tape-to-tape pass from Henrique and is immediately pressured by Mark Stone. With the puck on his backhand, he chooses to try and chip the puck up the board, which Mark Stone is able to read and intercept due to being one of the best forwards in hockey. Drysdale is obviously going up against some stiff competition there, but that turnover completely happens due to him playing on the left side as a right-handed shot. If that play was mirrored, and he received that puck in the opposite corner, I would expect to be able to make a better play with the puck due to him having the puck on his forehand.
Additionally, it is not as if the underlying numbers have been fantastic for Drysdale when paired with Manson. Per Naturalstattrick, Drysdale has been on the ice for 154 minutes with Manson, while only 76 without. With Manson his numbers at 5v5 are as follows, 37.69 CF/60, 70.71 CA/60, 34.77 CF%, 1.86 xGF/60, 3.57 xGA/60, 34.26 xGF%, while his numbers without Manson are the following, 58.37 CF/60, 69.41 CA/60, 45.68 CF%, 2.09 XGF/60, 3.79 xGA/60, 35.56 xGF%.
Essentially he has was not absolutely amazing without Manson, but there was a pretty significant decline especially from a shot quantity generation perspective once Drysdale was placed with Manson. This takes me back to the above clip. If a player is struggling to break the puck out of the zone if it real tough to get shot attempts for.
The final point to make is an important one, which is: what are the Ducks trying to accomplish by doing this? Right-handed defensemen are coveted in the league because of their rarity. Teams typically would kill to have an elite puck-moving defenseman on their right side, yet the Ducks are choosing to play someone that could eventually become that on his offside. The Ducks are out of the playoff race so these last games of the season are not about winning, so even if the team benefitted from playing him on the left side, if he long-term projects as a right-side defenseman then that is where he should be playing, full stop.
Haydn Fleury Excels
For those that listen to the podcast, I was not the highest on the acquisition of Fleury. Sure, the acquisition cost was extremely low, but it felt like the Ducks went out and got a bottom pairing defenseman with decent metrics on a powerhouse of a team, not exactly a difference-maker. I still don’t think he is that, but I am starting to eat my words slightly.
In the two games against Vegas, Fleury was excellent. In the first game against Vegas, he posted a 74.29 xGF%, which is honestly remarkable when you look at the global numbers for the Ducks in that game, and he followed that up with another solid performance in the second game of the series, posting a 58.79 xGF%.
From what I have seen, he does not have the best instincts in the offensive zone and is not someone that will become a point producer on the PP for the Ducks, but he can hold his own in his own end down low, is able to make a clean break out pass, and can defend the rush well, which lines up with his offensive war trend on the right-hand side of the player card per Jfresh:
If Fleury can maintain the play that he has provided in the Vegas series over the next few seasons, he could be a nice pickup that can help stabilize the Ducks defense moving forward. Having said that, they still should have moved Hakanpaa for futures.
Gibson Shines in Game 1, Struggles in Game 2
As I noted above, the first game of this 2 game set was awful for the Ducks. They were badly outplayed, outshot, and out-chanced, but the main positive for them in the game was John Gibson. He allowed 4 goals in this game, which was still somehow 0.94 goals saved above expected score and venue adjusted, which means if you replaced Gibson with a league-average goalie, he allows 5 goals instead of 4. That is not the difference between winning and losing this game but reveals that Gibson was excellent even though he was shelled by Vegas.
Game 2 was a different story. Gibson once again allowed in 4 goals, but the Ducks did a much better job in this game of limiting the shot quantity and quality against. The GSAx for Gibson in this game was -1.54. As Felix and I broke down on last night’s pod, two of the goals you cannot really fault him for (The first goal that was tipped and the Mark Stone breakaway), but the other two (The Roy shot short side and the Pietrangelo shot) Gibson has to do better on. If he makes those two saves, then he provides a slightly above-expected performance and gives the Ducks a chance to win. This might seem harsh, but Gibson has earned the reputation of being an elite goaltender, and elite goaltenders come up with those saves.
Gibson has really struggled to put together back to back above expected performances this year outside of the first month of the season. He had a stretch of six straight above expected performances in January, but since that stretch, has only had one two-game stretch of above-expected performances. The rest of his above-expected performances have been followed by below-expected ones.
For someone that was considered to be one of the top goalies in the league, something has to change, because something has gone awry and it is not just the team in front of him.
*All Stats per Evolving-Hockey unless noted otherwise.