Speculation: 2024-25 Roster thread

[Hockey Duckie]

I don't know that any of those guys is good. But Lundestrom is a big part of it. This season, his xGA/60 on the PK is second worst to Vatrano. Over the last three seasons, there are 145 players who have spent more than 200 minutes on the PK. Lundestrom is 5th worst in xGA/60 (2nd worst in actual GA/60). Now, there are a lot of Ducks high on that list, which indicates that there's plenty of blame to go around (including to coaches), but he's above (below?) them all. I'm not sure why people go out of their way to defend him.

At best, the argument is that Lundestrom doesn't matter because he's just a 4th liner. And that's mostly true, particularly for a team that's still as bad as the Ducks. But it would be nice to have an actually good 4th line center who can win faceoffs and PK well.

I think the coaches and defensemen have more input on the PK than you think. Stothers was PK coach for 2021-2023 and Thompson from 2023-2025. Thompson had a much better defensive roster than Stother's 2022-23 season, but has been terrible for both seasons.

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Comparing '22-23 (Stothers) with '23-24 (Thompson) Splits

Stothers' PK team

Focus on the PK side of the chart (right side). Notice how Stothers was able to help improve the PK unit as the season went until the TDL. Our best d-man on the PK was... Fowler?. Stothers set a high standard for the PK unit for furture seasons. He did a lot more with far less talent.


Thompson's PK Team

Thompson had an upgrade on the PK roster with blue line additions of Gudas, Lyubushkin, rookie LaCombe, and a healthy Vaak. As the season progressed, the worse the PK unit became. There was no improvement whatsoever like there was under Stothers. And our PK still sucks today as we have swapped out Fowler for Trouba.

Today, our PK unit still sucks and that's on Thompson.

 

[Sean Garrity]

You win the draw you kill 15 seconds of the penalty, and force an entry. That alone help A LOT. Win 3 faceoffs on same PP, and you're in GREAT shape.

Then why isn’t the coach imploring the players with better stats on faceoffs on the PK? Why are we fitting square pegs in to round holes? As I type this, I just watched Lundy lose a defensive zone faceoff, then Harkins take the next one, get subsequently kicked out and Lundy wins the faceoff. I think Mac’s stats on amount of faceoffs on the PK are likely low, too Getzlaf to look up stats, and also Mac seemingly gets thrown out of the faceoff dot frequently my guess is Harkins may be the same. Are there stats on being thrown out of the faceoff dot floating around, I don’t believe this counts “against” the person being thrown out of the draw which puts the second faceoff taker at a significant disadvantage. I don’t know for sure, just thinking out loud, but our faceoffs overall suck looking at those stats and overall team percentage.

 

[TopShelfWaterBottle]

 

[ohcomeonref]

View attachment 970246

It's really magical. Our goalies shouldn't have to pay for a dinner for the rest of the season.

 

[Dr Johnny Fever]

Sure is good to see all that sacrificed offense paying off.

 

[Boo Boo]

View attachment 970246

Columbus is in a playoff spot