Speculation: 2024-25 Roster Thread

[SmokeyDuck]

The 2nd worst team at winning faceoffs in the offensive zone is Calgary at 46.4%. The Ducks are the worst team all the way down at 40.8%. The gap between Anaheim and Calgary is the same as the gap between Calgary and 8th best team.

I think its a part of the reason why our special teams are so terribad. It has to be a huge focus in the off season. Thankfully McTavish is pretty good at them. Hopefully Leo will improve.

 

[KelVarnsen]

I think its a part of the reason why our special teams are so terribad. It has to be a huge focus in the off season. Thankfully McTavish is pretty good at them. Hopefully Leo will improve.

I actually don't think McTavish is all that good at them. He is below 50% on the year, his career average is below 50%, and he gets kicked out of the faceoff circle more than anyone I can recall. It's pretty comical how often he gets kicked out. And he's probably the best the Ducks have which is absolutely mind blowing.

When the team loses 60% of faceoffs every game, it's no wonder they are exhausted from chasing the puck so much.

 

[Bender66]

I find this funny so I felt like posting it again with all PP talk. The only guy between the goal line and the blue line is McTavish and if he was any farther back he'd be in the front row.

View attachment 998840

This picture is so depressing. I can see 3 diff ways to generate a 2 on 1 from this position if the puck carrier or Mac attack the net. but all 5 ducks just standing like statues waiting for something to happen is par for the course.

 

[Leonardo87]

I find this funny so I felt like posting it again with all PP talk. The only guy between the goal line and the blue line is McTavish and if he was any farther back he'd be in the front row.

View attachment 998840

Leo: "Where the f*** did everyone go?"

 

[Bender66]

The slingshot isn't the issue. Every team uses it. But most teams realize the guys without the puck also need to be in motion for it to be effective.

Yep. The slingshot also requires the puck carrier to come at full steam to back up the PK defenders. While Terry/Z have good puck skills and acceleration, neither have blazing top end speed to create the gaps necessary at blue line on entry

 

[Hockey Duckie]

I think its a part of the reason why our special teams are so terribad. It has to be a huge focus in the off season. Thankfully McTavish is pretty good at them. Hopefully Leo will improve.

• 2022-23 Damnit... these are 2023-24 numbers!
  • Overall FO: 46.7% (29th)
  • PP
    • PP FO: 48.9% (29th)
    • PP Eff: 18.3% (23rd)
  • PK
    • PK FO: 44.8% (16th)
    • PK Eff: 72.42% (31st)

Top-3 FO specialists for 2022-23 2023-24

• Rico: 52.9%
• Mac: 51.7%
• Carrick: 51.0%

Rico and Carrick were part of the PK team. Rico and Mac were part of the PP team.

This season, the only player with a 50% or higher FO Win% is Harkins with 54.7%. The only problem is he wasn't utilized as much with barely 200 FO attempts on the season. Mac is second with 49.5% on 806 FO attempts. Third is Lundy with 47.6% on 815 FO attempts.

Having a better FO numbers doesn't equate to better PP or PK efficiency. Those units just suck. We did replace PP coach Brown with Clune and it got worse. PK coach Thompson has two seasons of ineptness.

At last year's TDL, both Rico and Carrick were shipped to Edmonton. A few of us raised grave concern that we were losing two of our top-3 FO specialists. Verbeek should have known this fact as well, but he didn't address it in the off-season. This is akin to Verbeek gutting the blueline of its physicality at the 2022 TDL and not address it in the 2022 summer. Verbeek addressed the lack of physicality in the 2023 summer, a year later.

Edit: Both 2022-23 and 2023-24 have overall FO% of 46.7%. Total confusion on my part with several tabs open.

 

[The Duck Knight]

• 2022-23
  • Overall FO: 46.7% (29th)
  • PP
    • PP FO: 48.9% (29th)
    • PP Eff: 18.3% (23rd)
  • PK
    • PK FO: 44.8% (16th)
    • PK Eff: 72.42% (31st)

Top-3 FO specialists for 2022-23

• Rico: 52.9%
• Mac: 51.7%
• Carrick: 51.0%

Rico and Carrick were part of the PK team. Rico and Mac were part of the PP team.

This season, the only player with a 50% or higher FO Win% is Harkins with 54.7%. The only problem is he wasn't utilized as much with barely 200 FO attempts on the season. Mac is second with 49.5% on 806 FO attempts. Third is Lundy with 47.6% on 815 FO attempts.

Having a better FO numbers doesn't equate to better PP or PK efficiency. Those units just suck. We did replace PP coach Brown with Clune and it got worse. PK coach Thompson has two seasons of ineptness.

At last year's TDL, both Rico and Carrick were shipped to Edmonton. A few of us raised grave concern that we were losing two of our top-3 FO specialists. Verbeek should have known this fact as well, but he didn't address it in the off-season. This is akin to Verbeek gutting the blueline of its physicality at the 2022 TDL and not address it in the 2022 summer. Verbeek addressed the lack of physicality in the 2023 summer, a year later.

It absolutely helps a PP be more effective. You need the puck to score. If you lose a faceoff and the D clears that's 1/4 of the PP gone automatically. Likewise on the PK. Obviously it's not the ONLY reason they suck, but it's laughable to claim it's not a contributing factor. The league average PP faceoff percentage is 55%. This year we have nearly identical PP (43.8) and SH (43.5) faceoff percentages. That's dead last on the PP by 3%. Only 7 teams are under 50% on PP FO's.

 

[HanSolo]

The 2nd worst team at winning faceoffs in the offensive zone is Calgary at 46.4%. The Ducks are the worst team all the way down at 40.8%. The gap between Anaheim and Calgary is the same as the gap between Calgary and 8th best team.

Jesus christ that's depressing. I've been saying it throughout the season, the team needs to invest in an assistant coach whose only job is to coach faceoffs.

 

[TheGoodShepard1]

I actually don't think McTavish is all that good at them. He is below 50% on the year, his career average is below 50%, and he gets kicked out of the faceoff circle more than anyone I can recall. It's pretty comical how often he gets kicked out. And he's probably the best the Ducks have which is absolutely mind blowing.

When the team loses 60% of faceoffs every game, it's no wonder they are exhausted from chasing the puck so much.

I would also like to know the numbers behind when they actually win the faceoff in their end and then IMMEDIATELY fail with the DZone exit and give the puck right back to the other team because it seems to happen at least half the time

 

[duxfan1101]

It absolutely helps a PP be more effective. You need the puck to score. If you lose a faceoff and the D clears that's 1/4 of the PP gone automatically. Likewise on the PK. Obviously it's not the ONLY reason they suck, but it's laughable to claim it's not a contributing factor. The league average PP faceoff percentage is 55%. This year we have nearly identical PP (43.8) and SH (43.5) faceoff percentages. That's dead last on the PP by 3%. Only 7 teams are under 50% on PP FO's.

I wrote about this (and added a statistical analysis) last summer: Faceoffs and Special Teams

It doesn’t necessarily prove that winning faceoffs makes your team better on special teams, but there is statistical evidence that having a higher faceoff percentage helps your expected goals for/against per 60 number in both PP and PK situations. And it makes logical sense: if you have the puck more, you should be more efficient at generating/preventing scoring chances.

 

[Leonardo87]

 

[JAHV]

Good to see Colangelo back out there, although I'd rather see him on the third line than Nesterenko. But Nesterenko has acquitted himself well in the last few games, so I'm ok with keeping him there for now.

 

[ADHB]

I actually don't think McTavish is all that good at them. He is below 50% on the year, his career average is below 50%, and he gets kicked out of the faceoff circle more than anyone I can recall. It's pretty comical how often he gets kicked out. And he's probably the best the Ducks have which is absolutely mind blowing.

When the team loses 60% of faceoffs every game, it's no wonder they are exhausted from chasing the puck so much.

If you get kicked out of the faceoff, you can’t lose it…

 

[ShadowDuck]

Is Nathan Gaucher ready for a call up? Pretty sure he’s known for face offs

 

[duxfan1101]

Is Nathan Gaucher ready for a call up? Pretty sure he’s known for face offs

He’s injured.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

It absolutely helps a PP be more effective. You need the puck to score. If you lose a faceoff and the D clears that's 1/4 of the PP gone automatically. Likewise on the PK. Obviously it's not the ONLY reason they suck, but it's laughable to claim it's not a contributing factor. The league average PP faceoff percentage is 55%. This year we have nearly identical PP (43.8) and SH (43.5) faceoff percentages. That's dead last on the PP by 3%. Only 7 teams are under 50% on PP FO's.

In theory, it should help. But the context is the Ducks.

PP ===
I believe Geoff Ward was the one who stirred the PP cup for the Ducks and Brown road his coattails. Also, it helped having both Getz (53.3% FO) and Rico (55.3% FO) for the that '21-22 season. Outside the '21-22 PP unit, we see that the '22-23 PP had the best FO%, but not the best PP Eff in the past three season and the PP Eff rank has the '22-23 on the same level as this year's PP Eff rank.

PK ===
Our worst FO% in the past four years was the '21-22 season, but they were our best PK unit by a long mile. Therein lies the difference between blueline roster of '21-22 and the Verbeekening collection of '22-23. We don't possess great enough PK talent to overcome weak PK FO%. Then again, with the fluctuations of the past three seasons, our PK Eff remains terrible.

 

[duckpuck]

Good to see Colangelo back out there, although I'd rather see him on the third line than Nesterenko. But Nesterenko has acquitted himself well in the last few games, so I'm ok with keeping him there for now.

Nesterenko strikes me as potentially being an indeal 3rd line forward as he continues to develop. Glad to see he's getting some playing time.

 

[Leonardo87]

Some stat cards compliments of @Machinehead

Machinehead can probably explain it better. But to summarize…

Mac has crazy offense potential, Very Solid numbers for Cutter and Leo, Z continues to struggle under Cronin’s system, and Troy Terry is really good at hockey and is being Held back on that line with Strome and Vatrano .

 

[Machinehead]

Some stat cards compliments of @Machinehead

View attachment 999417
View attachment 999418
View attachment 999420
View attachment 999422
View attachment 999419
Machinehead can probably explain it better. But to summarize…

Mac has crazy offense potential, Very Solid numbers for Cutter and Leo, Z continues to struggle under Cronin’s system, and Troy Terry is really good at hockey and is being Held back on that line with Strome and Vatrano .

I will say that viewings are of course still important and I have no real opinion on any of this, as I'm barely paying attention to the Rangers at this point. I just fetched the cards.

My observations just based on how these stats usually work is that young players don't always score particularly well on them. I mean, we have points and goals, so most analytics like these are attemping to get at stuff besides raw scoring. The finer points of the game is often where young players struggle.

So you see a guy like Carlsson, who certainly isn't winning the Hart with that chart by any means, but he's above replacement at everything. At 20 years old that's a good sign. He charts similarly to a very young Barkov before the offense really took off.

For McTavish and Gauthier what you're seeing is that their GAR outpaces their xGAR. To make a long story short, GAR represents your team scoring when you're on the ice in a raw goals, and xGAR represents what they "should" score i.e. the chances you're generating. For a young player, again, that's not actually too bad, as long as xGAR isn't way in the negative, which it's not. Beating your chance generation with raw goals shows talent. Those are guys who finish the chances they get, and produce chances that are of slightly higher quality than the numbers can capture. That's why they do include the goals. Ovechkin has been outpacing his chance generation for almost 1,500 games.

As I told Leo, just from this limited perspective, it looks like the Ducks have a lot of talent at forward, it just comes down to the right system and bringing in the right linemates to execute it.

Another thing worth noting, and for those of you not too into the chart stuff, this is more raw: Mason McTavish has 43 points in 64 games playing 16:44 a game. 16:44 is not particularly a lot. The Ducks are also outscoring opponents with him on the ice and it's not that close honestly. If you gave his guy 20+ minutes, he might be a 1st line center down the road, and if Carlsson continues progressing with his all-around game, that's gonna be tough down the middle.

Thanks Leo for giving me something to talk about besides the Rangers.

 

[Leonardo87]

I will say that viewings are of course still important and I have no real opinion on any of this, as I'm barely paying attention to the Rangers at this point. I just fetched the cards.

My observations just based on how these stats usually work is that young players don't always score particularly well on them. I mean, we have points and goals, so most analytics like these are attemping to get at stuff besides raw scoring. The finer points of the game is often where young players struggle.

So you see a guy like Carlsson, who certainly isn't winning the Hart with that chart by any means, but he's above replacement at everything. At 20 years old that's a good sign. He charts similarly to a very young Barkov before the offense really took off.

For McTavish and Gauthier what you're seeing is that their GAR outpaces their xGAR. To make a long story short, GAR represents your team scoring when you're on the ice in a raw goals, and xGAR represents what they "should" score i.e. the chances you're generating. For a young player, again, that's not actually too bad, as long as xGAR isn't way in the negative, which it's not. Beating your chance generation with raw goals shows talent. Those are guys who finish the chances they get, and produce chances that are of slightly higher quality than the numbers can capture. That's why they do include the goals. Ovechkin has been outpacing his chance generation for almost 1,500 games.

As I told Leo, just from this limited perspective, it looks like the Ducks have a lot of talent at forward, it just comes down to the right system and bringing in the right linemates to execute it.

Another thing worth noting, and for those of you not too into the chart stuff, this is more raw: Mason McTavish has 43 points in 64 games playing 16:44 a game. 16:44 is not particularly a lot. The Ducks are also outscoring opponents with him on the ice and it's not that close honestly. If you gave his guy 20+ minutes, he might be a 1st line center down the road, and if Carlsson continues progressing with his all-around game, that's gonna be tough down the middle.

Thanks Leo for giving me something to talk about besides the Rangers.

Friday should be interesting. lol

Anyway thanks for the info dude.

 

[Machinehead]

Friday should be interesting. lol

Anyway thanks for the info dude.

I'm gonna keep an eye on Carlsson since I don't have work the next day. I wanna see if the Barkov comp has legs because their early charts are Spiderman pointing at Spiderman.

 

[Leonardo87]

I'm gonna keep an eye on Carlsson since I don't have work the next day. I wanna see if the Barkov comp has legs because their early charts are Spiderman pointing at Spiderman.

Yeah he has been compared to Barkov several times more recently on a TNT broadcast. I’m not too concerned about his points, given how bad the Ducks PP is.

Barkov had like 36 points in his D+2 year. I hope Leo can pass that . Love to see him hit 20 goals and 40 points would be solid for a 20 yo on this team.

Yeah I’m also excited about McTavish who was getting criticized last year , and he has really cleaned up his game with taking those bad penalties. But yeah his defense needs to improve a little.

With that said I really think Zegras is the odd man out when that kid Beckett is ready. It’s a shame really like the kid but maybe there is a way to keep him as a Top 6 winger.

 

[Rasp]

I will say that viewings are of course still important and I have no real opinion on any of this, as I'm barely paying attention to the Rangers at this point. I just fetched the cards.

My observations just based on how these stats usually work is that young players don't always score particularly well on them. I mean, we have points and goals, so most analytics like these are attemping to get at stuff besides raw scoring. The finer points of the game is often where young players struggle.

So you see a guy like Carlsson, who certainly isn't winning the Hart with that chart by any means, but he's above replacement at everything. At 20 years old that's a good sign. He charts similarly to a very young Barkov before the offense really took off.

For McTavish and Gauthier what you're seeing is that their GAR outpaces their xGAR. To make a long story short, GAR represents your team scoring when you're on the ice in a raw goals, and xGAR represents what they "should" score i.e. the chances you're generating. For a young player, again, that's not actually too bad, as long as xGAR isn't way in the negative, which it's not. Beating your chance generation with raw goals shows talent. Those are guys who finish the chances they get, and produce chances that are of slightly higher quality than the numbers can capture. That's why they do include the goals. Ovechkin has been outpacing his chance generation for almost 1,500 games.

As I told Leo, just from this limited perspective, it looks like the Ducks have a lot of talent at forward, it just comes down to the right system and bringing in the right linemates to execute it.

Another thing worth noting, and for those of you not too into the chart stuff, this is more raw: Mason McTavish has 43 points in 64 games playing 16:44 a game. 16:44 is not particularly a lot. The Ducks are also outscoring opponents with him on the ice and it's not that close honestly. If you gave his guy 20+ minutes, he might be a 1st line center down the road, and if Carlsson continues progressing with his all-around game, that's gonna be tough down the middle.

Thanks Leo for giving me something to talk about besides the Rangers.

Do you have any gems of knowledge about our young D?

 

[Sean Garrity]

I like that unit that’s listed second.

 

[The Duck Knight]

I like that unit that’s listed second.

I do too. Don't like the fact that Cutter isn't on either unit though.