I want them to score more goals, I'm tired of hearing about the Celebrini's, Fantilli's, Bedard's and Michkov's breaking out, and our kids are pacing for like 35-40 points, it's just sad. At least under Eakins had Zegras with 60 point seasons, and Terry also broke out as well. Good for LaCombe this year but our forwards are struggling to produce right now.
The defense has not been good enough for the amount of offense that has been sacrificed. Goaltending can only bail them out so much. I thought Dostal had a decent game but should have saved that Buffalo GW goal, actually agree with Hazy that goal would have stayed out if he didn't push the net back a little. It's a game of inches. If they scored a 3rd goal early, instead of turtling. It's a different game and outcome.
Don't forget 19-year old RD Drysdale notched 32 points in his rookie season too under Eakins.
This game identifies why Cronin's game plan is stifling if individual effort cannot step up offensively at Even Strength (ES). Like in the previous game against the Wings, we score two goals on 6v5 situations at the end of the game to steal a point in a game we weren't in most of the game.
Vs Sabres, 3-2 loss
Coach responsible for unit within parenthesis in the listing below against the Sabres.
- PP (Clune): 2/4 (50%)
- PK (Thompson): 3/3 (100%)
- Goalie (Budaj): 0.914 Sv%
- ES defense (Cronin): 3 goals allowed
- ES offense (Cronin): 0 goals for
Living on Extremes
Anaheim is an all or nothing team with respect to scoring three goals or fewer. The three goals scored threshold is a mystery as to why the Ducks have not lost a game in regulation. If they cannot score three goals, then it is as if we are unable to break through the kryptonite to being more successful. Therein lies the crux. The Ducks boasts a great goalie duo to hold leads with three or more goals scored, but not enough times when fewer than three goals are scored.
A detrimental factor in the inability to score goals is the quantity of games we cannot score them in. Over half of the game games played the Ducks cannot score three or more goals.
Anaheim's offense is wildly Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a 2.56 difference between games where we score '3 or more' goals and not. That is a far greater difference than GA/GP average! The league average for GF and GA is 3.00 at the moment, as per Hockey-Reference. The GA/GP for both sets are around the league average of 3.00, which most of the heavy load is carried by goalies Dostal and Gibson. We can count on our goalies to reproduce that play game after game.
What we can't reproduce repeatedly game after game is our scoring. We are more or less a counter offensive scheme. Sometimes we get lucky and more times we do not.
Consistency Between the Two Seasons
What has been reproduceable in our offense is the lack of offense.
Last year Goals For = 204 (30th in league)
This year Goals For = 146 (32nd in league, or last in league)
With so many youths in other organizations popping off, I am with
@Leonardo87 about the lack of offense from our own offensive youths is staggeringly depressing. Almost two seasons of being consistent at not scoring well is on the books. That is a large enough sample that the Ducks should move on from our coaching staff from HC to PP to PK coaches. It is not working.
