Ducks vs Golden Knights Series in Review: Comtois Shines, Ducks Struggle

The first two-game, baseball-style, series is now in the rearview mirror for the Ducks, and while some might think they should have come away with two points from the two games, they honestly were lucky to even get one point out of these games. The Ducks were outplayed by a better Golden Knights team throughout both games and stole a point in the second game on the back of a very good John Gibson performance.

The Money Puck Deserve To Win O’Meter confirms this (This meter is not the be all end all but it provides a nice snapshot into how the teams performed throughout the game).

From Game 1:

From Game 2:

This data confirms what I saw on the ice and, to be honest, what I expected going into this series. The Golden Knights have built a juggernaut of a team that has one of the best defensive forwards in the league and one of the best defenseman in the league, to go along with a team that can attack in waves and gets goals from every line.

That’s enough about the Golden Knights though, this is a Ducks blog so let’s jump into some of the bigger storylines and observations about the Ducks that I had from the first two games.

The talking point for most Ducks fans right now is Max Comtois and the fact that he has all three goals for the Ducks team. There are some negative points to get to about this, but let’s start with the positives. The Comtois Steel Terry line has been a slightly unexpected success for the Ducks. Not only does that line have the only goal scorer for the Ducks so far, but that line has been the most noticeable for the Ducks at generating offense, which is confirmed by a team-leading 0.68 xGF at ES over the two games. Part of that could be due to receiving a softer matchup against the Vegas third line primarily, but they deserve a lot of credit for taking advantage of the matchup presented to them.

The downside for this line though is they have been on the ice for the most chances against with a 1.3 xGA. They were caught out against a lot of Vegas chances early on in the second game which led to this high expected goal total against. There is a lot of work to be done by this line in their own zone and if they can make those strides, they could become difference makers. Even if that does not happen though, sign me up for a high event hockey (One the gives up chances against, but gets chances for) instead of low event hockey. Eakins should be playing this line more, but we will get into that in a bit.

Before jumping into a major issue for the Ducks, I need to give the fourth line some credit. I am their biggest critic and will remain that until we get a larger sample size of their play, but they have been solid so far this season. They have the best xGF% on the team right now at 46.97% and have generated the second most chances for at 0.6 xGF, while only allowing 0.68xGA. This is a stark difference from last year especially on the defensive side of the puck, where they allowed double that number of chances against on the regular. If they can keep up this play and not be a negative drag on the Ducks at 5v5, that would be a welcomed surprise.

Ok, now it’s time for the significant issue for this team, which is chance generation. Even without numbers, you could tell that the Ducks struggled to generate chances throughout the course of the series. They were able to create some, Getzlaf and Rakell’s clean looks in game two come to mind right away, but the amount they created was not enough, which is confirmed by the numbers. The Ducks generated 1.58 xGF/60, which is good for 5th worst in the league so far. If they want to have any chance at making the playoffs they need to be getting around 2 expected goals per game, even with a MVP-type season from Gibson. A big reason for the global lack of chances is the Getzlaf and Henrique lines really struggled overall, generating under 0.5 xGF throughout the course of the series.

The struggles of the Rakell Henrique Silfverberg line have been put under the microscope due to them being the de facto first line for the Ducks, and while they do need to do better at generating chances and maintaining the puck in the offensive zone, they were matched up against Mark Stone and Alex Pietrangelo for most of the series. It is going to take elite talent to break through against those players, and sadly this line does not have that. They are all good players, but none of them are elite (for any wrestling fans I am singing the being the elite song in my head). The next series is going to be critical for this line. The Minnesota Wild are a very good team but do not have the defensive talent of the Golden Knights. This will be the series where they prove that they are the top line for the Ducks, or the lines need to be shuffled up.

Speaking of struggling, Dallas Eakins to me had a very poor series against the Golden Knights. This season is going to be fascinating because we will be able to see how coaches are able to adjust to how the opponent played in the previous game. The issue here is the Ducks made none. Dallas Eakins kept the lineup exactly the same even though some were calling, including myself, for Sonny Milano to draw into the lineup for Isac Lundestrom to provide some offensive talent to a line that really needed it. This lineup recreated the dull performance from game one and was only able to get a better result because of one John Gibson. Do not let the result in game two fool you, changes to the lineup should have been made. Additionally, the distribution of ice time in the series is puzzling. The Henrique line played 22:10, The Getzlaf line played 20:04, the Steel line played 20:33, and the Grant line played 21:22. Even if you are a fan of the Grant line, there is no way they should have played more than the Getzlaf or Steel line. It is just not an optimal use of the lineup.

The final critical takeaways before I end on some positive notes is the Fowler Manson pairing just is not working. They put up some decent numbers in small sample size when paired together last season, but so far this season they have been atrocious, which mirrors the results of the 18-19 season. They have thus far allowed the most expected goals against by a significant margin, while also being on the ice for the lowest expected goals for. It has been a disaster to put it lightly. I think you need to give them a bit more time to try and gel, but in a shortened season when you are trying to win, that length of time cannot be that long.

Ok onto some positives, Kevin Shattenkirk is really good and he is bringing the best out of Hampus Lindholm. The Ducks were on the back foot for the most part against Vegas, but not when these two were on the ice. The Ducks held the edge in the expected goals battle and the shot attempt battle when this pairing was out there. Both of them have been really hard on the puck on zone entries and done a fantastic job to separate the man from the puck, but where Shattenkirk has specifically impressed me is on his ability to break the puck out of the zone and his ability to pinch at the right time to keep an attack going. This pairing alone is not enough to carry the Ducks to playoffs, but they have been excellent and I am excited to continue watching them gel.

Another thing to be happy about is John Gibson. In game one, Ducks’ fans did not see Gibson’s best with him allowing 4 goals on 28 shots. Even though you could argue three of the goals were not his fault, Gibson is an elite goalie and allowing that many goals on that many shots are just not good enough. He needs to come up with a save or two on those goals. He followed up this performance though with an excellent game two of the series, where we saw vintage Gibson. He was slightly shaky, allowing some big rebounds in the early going, but was able to track them nicely to clean up his own mess. After the first stretch, he was locked in and only allowed a goal once Vegas had the extra man. Per Evolving-Hockey, he logged a 0.72 GSAx in this game, and a -1.7 GSAx in game one. If Gibson can continue to perform as he did in game two, the Ducks have a chance to steal some 1-0 or 2-1 games throughout the season. The big question is should this be the path to victory for the Ducks? In my humble opinion, no.

Overall the Ducks performed as expected against Vegas. Vegas was the better team, but the Ducks were able to get a point out of the series due to John Gibson and Max Comtois. The good news for the Ducks is a lot of teams will struggle to get points against Vegas, so taking 1 point out of the series does not kill their playoff hopes.

Up next though are the Minnesota Wild, who are coming off two come-from-behind victories against the Kings and have a rising talent in Kirill Kaprizov. The Wild are a team the Ducks will be competing directly with for that fourth and final playoff spot in the west division. The Ducks need to pick up points in this series because if they lose both games that is an 8 point swing towards the Wild.