Anaheim Ducks Weekly Ratings Jan 24th-Jan 31st: Where are we dropping?

The ratings have returned!!!! For those who never followed this series at Anaheim Calling, this is a weekly series, where I, Jake Rudolph aka “The Pro Ranker of Things” per CJ Woodling, take a look at how various players on the team have fared.

The players will be grouped into the lines and D pairs they spent the most ice time with, and a player will need to play in over half of the games in the week to be ranked. I will 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 past week.

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!

The games included in the ratings for this week (I am still being very liberal with week for this rating) are January 24th vs Colorado, January 26th vs Arizona, January 28th vs Arizona, January 30th vs St Louis, and January 31st vs St Louis.

Throughout the extended offseason for the Ducks, I needed to find something to entertain myself with at night. There was no Ducks hockey, the Angels were once again awful, and basketball was just not holding my attention, so I started to dabble in dropping into a foreign land called Verdansk.

Next thing I know, I am squadding up with my boys (shoutout Daniel, Nathan, and Jason) on most nights as we would try to be the ultimate victors in Call of Duty Warzone. On the majority of nights, our efforts would be for naught, but on those rare occasions, we would be the team that got to enter the chopper as we would blast Fortunate Son over discord. In honor of these hard-fought victories, I am going to be rating drop locations in warzone. The following will be me choosing one drop location that I believe fits that rating.

Having said that- as always, these ratings are 100% correct, and no one can tell me otherwise.

5 STARS: TRAIN STATION

Train Station is a super underrated drop location in warzone, and as you can tell by the rating is one of my favorite places to drop. The main lobby within the train station has a ton of loot and cash, and while you could end up finding yourself in some early gunfights, the amount of them is significantly less than other areas with a lot of loot.

All you have to do is win that first fight and then most likely all the cash and loot is yours. You can then quickly get your loadout and make a variety of different rotations/ plays. You could stay at train and try and pick off enemies with a sniper from the roof, you can rotate to Boneyard or Promenade east or west, or make your way to Hospital. Basically, you will be well set up with guns, armor, and money to take on the rest of the zone!

John Gibson - John Gibson very well could have been placed in the 4-star rating this week after he had some below-average performances against the Blues, but I felt like that would have been too harsh on him after the Arizona and Colorado series. On the whole for the week, John Gibson started in 5 games and posted a 0.913 sv% and a 1.09 GSAx.

In addition to that, he was the primary reason that the Ducks got any points this week. He shut out the Coyotes in a 1-0 win that the Ducks didn’t deserve, and only allowed one goal in a 3-1 win against the Avalanche, where the third goal was an empty netter. John Gibson was the main positive for the Ducks in the past week and for that, he deserves 5 stars.

4 STARS: DOWNTOWN

Not going to lie, this rating is purely for my homie Daniel. This is his favorite spot to drop, and while I do think it is a fun place to drop, it is not my favorite. The positives of downtown are there are a ton of buildings to loot, a bunch of contracts that you can get early on, and it is a fun mix of potential close-quarters combat along with more long-range engagements.

The main issue I have with downtown is you can be ambushed by a sniper on the rooftops way too easily, which will just ruin your game. Downtown is definitely a spot I will keep going to, but there are some drawbacks.

Danton Heinen - Adam Henrique - Jakob Silfverberg - This line was actually good this last week, both on the scoresheet and on the ice. Jakob Silfverberg scored 3 goals in the week, while Danton Heinen scored 2 goals, and Adam Henrique got 1 assist. This tied for the most points from a line this week, which is even more impressive when you factor in that Adam Henrique was scratched for a game in a puzzling decision by the coaching staff.

This line was the only line close to even in the shot quantity battle at 48.57%, while actually leading the way in the shot quality battle at 57.77 xGF%, 56 SCF%, and 65 HDCF%. They were the only Ducks line to get the better of their opponents. These numbers beg the question, why was Adam Henrique scratched, when his line was the only one pushing the play towards the other team’s zone this past week. Poor decision from Eakins.

3 STARS: SUPERSTORE

Superstore is the place where the best players and the wannabe streamers head to. If I am feeling cocky/confident or if I am just ready to have a short but hilarious round, I will head to superstore. You can guarantee that you will find someone to fight within a minute or less of dropping, and it quickly becomes a battle of who can find a weapon first.

While this type of gameplay is super fast and fun, the issue is it also results in an early death like 90 percent of the time and then probably a quick round on the whole. If you can somehow make it out alive though, you will feel like an absolute champion and you will have enough loot to do whatever you want for the rest of the round.

No Duck player deserved a 3-star rating.

2 STARS: DAM

I really want to like Dam. I always force my squad to head on over to Dam once a game, and we always end up regretting it. The loot is never that great, and if you do not get to the one or two contracts there first you are kind of screwed unless you grab chopper.

Even if you get to the contract and get enough cash to get a loady, you typically aren’t in the best position to engage. The rotations from here suck also. Basically, the only saving grace is the chopper.

Max Jones - Ryan Getzlaf - Rickard Rakell - This line’s on ice metrics were not fantastic, but in comparison to the rest of the team they actually weren’t all that bad. 41.41 CF%, 41.22 xGF%, and a 43.64 SCF%. These are still lower than you would want for this line, which is why they are at a 2-star rating, but in comparison to the rest of the team, not bad.

In addition to this, Getzlaf was tied for the most points in the past week with 3 along with Rakell logging two points, and Jones logging one goal. If they could have found their way closer to being even in the chance and shot metrics, they could have found themselves with a better rating.

1 STAR: FARMLAND

A place I call weenie hut jr. Farmland sucks, and for some reason my squad always wants to drop here. Probably because it is super safe and you can last a while if you land there. But typically, even if you last a while, you aren’t set up well for gunfights.

Cash is pretty hard to find in farmland, so it could take you a while to find enough to get a loadout, and even if you do, but that point in time, most other teams already have their guns and cash. You also run into a lot of campers here that will just stake out the second floor of a building and just take you out as you run by. Farmland sucks.

Hampus Lindholm - Kevin Shattenkirk - This pairing was not only bad for the Ducks this week in terms of shot-based metrics, but they were just horrible in terms of goal-based metrics also. In a normal week, I would have had them higher due to the fact that they had the best CF% at 48.61%, best xGF% at 40.13%, and best SCF% at 44.12, for any Ducks D pair this week, but they were on the ice for 6 goals against and no goals for, while the other D pairs combined were on the ice for 5 goals against.

Some of this is bad luck, but some of it is poor play, as the second goal against the Blues where Shattenkirk allowed Sandford to walk out in front of the net untouched and score shows. They were really bad in almost all of the games.

Nicolas Deslauriers - Derek Grant - Carter Rowney - The fourth line saw my praise last week and decided to go back to their old ways. They were extremely poor at 5v5, posting a 38.85 CF%, a 32.52 xGF%, and a 31.15 SCF%. The only saving grace is that they came out on the positive side of the GF% battle at 60%, but as you can see from the other metrics, that was probably more so due to luck/unsustainable shooting percentages or save percentages, while they were on the ice. To show how bad they were, relative to their teammates they were -5.4 CF% rel, -10.14 xGF% rel, and -11.60 SCF% rel. Basically, the Ducks were worse with them on the ice.

Cam Fowler - Jani Hakanpaa - This pairing, like the entire Ducks team, was not good at 5v5 this past week. . Here are their numbers: 41.53 CF%, 40% GF%, 34.08 xGF%, and 39.66 SCF%.

Ben Hutton - Jacob Larsson - They were also poor at 5v5. Here are their numbers: 36.36 CF%, 35.19 GF%, 33.88 xGF%, and 35.56 xGF%.

Max Comtois - Sam Steel - Troy Terry - This line just did not work this past week. When they were on the ice the Ducks got shellacked to the tune of 43.69 CF%, 34.23 xGF%, and a 31.91 SCF%. As you can see even if the quantity battle does not look horrible, the quality battle does.

UNRANKED: PRISON HOT DROP

I couldn’t rate this because it is so specific, but a prison hot drop is so much fun. It is similar to superstore in that it could be a quick one, but hunting people in there is a blast, especially if you can lay claim to the top tower. You feel like you are the king of the mountain.

David Backes (2 Games Played), Isac Lundestrom (1 Game Played), Andy Welinski (1 Game Played), Vinni Lettieri (1 Game Played), Andrew Agozzino (1 Game Played), Ryan Miller (1 Game Played)

*All skater stats are from Naturalstattrick unless stated otherwise.