KingDeathMetal
Registered User
Oh you thought this was going to be a neat thread about Ducks history? Fooled you. So here's my insulting offer for Hampus Lindholm...
Kidding. Rangers fan here, but I've always enjoyed the Ducks. Someone recently made a thread in the History of Hockey forum looking for an NHL equivalent to the 90s Orlando Magic in the NBA. If you're not familiar with the topic, a 30 for 30 documentary was recently released about the Orlando Magic of the mid 90s, which were primed to be an NBA superpower with possibly the two best young talents in the game at that time (Shaq O'Neal and Penny Hardaway), surrounded by other good young talent, until Shaq left town for the Lakers and Penny's career was ravaged by injuries.
Anyway, one team that came to mind for me as a weird, alternate universe equivalent was the late 90s/early 00s Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and not just for their shared Disney connection.
Unlike the Magic of that era, the Ducks never had anything resembling a dominant season, and their failed Finals run in 2003 came after their big twosome of Kariya/Selanne had broken up. But as I started digging a bit more into that team's history, both from memory (I can't say I followed the team that closely, but I was a huge Kariya and Selanne fan who roughly kept up with them as much as a NYer can) and from looking through past rosters and results, it seemed to me like there was more to that team than what appeared on the surface.
Looking back, I think that team could have been a winner if Selanne wasn't traded and Kariya stayed healthy, which then would have coincided with three post-Selanne events: the hiring of Mike Babcock, the emergence of J.S. Giguere, and the addition of key veterans such as Adam Oates and Petr Sykora. Even with Selanne out of the picture and Kariya not quite the same dominant force as he had been in years prior, the Ducks still forced NJ to Game 7 in the '03 Finals. At the time most NHL fans just regarded that team as a fluke, but what if they were a team that was always primed for great things, but couldn't quite get everything lined up properly?
So here's the post I made in that thread. Again, this was written from the perspective of a NYR fan who liked the Ducks and their players but never followed them closely. It's my best guess at the team's narrative from that era. As Ducks fans, what do you make of that team in retrospect? Did you guys have the feeling that Kariya and Selanne were the keys to something big that was always just around the corner, but never quite happened? (And, thankfully for Ducks fans, this did not end tragically as the team quickly rebuilt a juggernaut of a team that won the Cup and is still one of the elite teams in the league all these years later)
My post below...
Kidding. Rangers fan here, but I've always enjoyed the Ducks. Someone recently made a thread in the History of Hockey forum looking for an NHL equivalent to the 90s Orlando Magic in the NBA. If you're not familiar with the topic, a 30 for 30 documentary was recently released about the Orlando Magic of the mid 90s, which were primed to be an NBA superpower with possibly the two best young talents in the game at that time (Shaq O'Neal and Penny Hardaway), surrounded by other good young talent, until Shaq left town for the Lakers and Penny's career was ravaged by injuries.
Anyway, one team that came to mind for me as a weird, alternate universe equivalent was the late 90s/early 00s Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and not just for their shared Disney connection.
Unlike the Magic of that era, the Ducks never had anything resembling a dominant season, and their failed Finals run in 2003 came after their big twosome of Kariya/Selanne had broken up. But as I started digging a bit more into that team's history, both from memory (I can't say I followed the team that closely, but I was a huge Kariya and Selanne fan who roughly kept up with them as much as a NYer can) and from looking through past rosters and results, it seemed to me like there was more to that team than what appeared on the surface.
Looking back, I think that team could have been a winner if Selanne wasn't traded and Kariya stayed healthy, which then would have coincided with three post-Selanne events: the hiring of Mike Babcock, the emergence of J.S. Giguere, and the addition of key veterans such as Adam Oates and Petr Sykora. Even with Selanne out of the picture and Kariya not quite the same dominant force as he had been in years prior, the Ducks still forced NJ to Game 7 in the '03 Finals. At the time most NHL fans just regarded that team as a fluke, but what if they were a team that was always primed for great things, but couldn't quite get everything lined up properly?
So here's the post I made in that thread. Again, this was written from the perspective of a NYR fan who liked the Ducks and their players but never followed them closely. It's my best guess at the team's narrative from that era. As Ducks fans, what do you make of that team in retrospect? Did you guys have the feeling that Kariya and Selanne were the keys to something big that was always just around the corner, but never quite happened? (And, thankfully for Ducks fans, this did not end tragically as the team quickly rebuilt a juggernaut of a team that won the Cup and is still one of the elite teams in the league all these years later)
My post below...
Surprised nobody mentioned the (not so) obvious choice...
Just like the Orlando Magic, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks were viewed as a joke Disney team, as both neighbored Disney World and Disneyland respectively.
Like Orlando, Anaheim drafted and traded itself into the unique position of having two superstars who were expected to dominate the NHL in the latter portion of the 90s: Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne.
And just like Orlando, a combination of injuries and bad timing possibly cost the Ducks a championship.
In their first full season together (1996-97), Kariya and Selanne were the NHL's best duo, scoring 109 pts (Selanne, 78 games) and 99 pts (Kariya, 69 games), and leading the Ducks to 85 pts and a .518 W%, a full .133% points above where they finished two seasons prior, before Selanne had played a game for the team (he was traded to Anaheim in 95-96, and immediately made the Ducks a contender to make the playoffs).
In the 96-97 playoffs, the Ducks beat the Coyotes in 7 games, and while they were swept by the Cup winning Red Wings in the second round, they took that historically good team to OT in 3 of those games, including a triple OT game, on the back of Mikhail Shtalenkov, who was a renowned international goalie at the time and expected to do big things for the Ducks.
The next season, when everybody expected the Ducks to take the next step and be a contender in the West, Kariya got injured and played only 22 games. The Ducks missed the playoffs, and Shtalenkov didn't pan out the way they hoped. They finished with 65 points.
Next season in 1998-99, Kariya and Selanne respectively get 107 and 101 pts, the team finishes with 83 pts and once again loses to the Red Wings, this time in the first round.
Over the next couple seasons, Kariya and Selanne's output begins to slip as league-wide offense falls off a cliff. The most successful teams have big, physical centermen and elite goalies, neither of which Anaheim possesses. They did get Oleg Tverdosky back, and during his initial years back with the Ducks he finally started to look like the star D they thought they were getting when they took him as a lottery pick (he was part of the trade for Selanne in the first place). However...still no elite goalie, and Kariya is routinely missing 15-20 games per season.
They also are struggling under Craig Hartsburg, who was fired during the 2000-01 season, when Selanne was dealt at the deadline to San Jose.
The next season, 2001-02, without Selanne, Kariya comes back from injuries suffered in previous seasons and starts to seriously decline. However, J.S. Giguere, who had been on the roster with Selanne the year before, had a breakout season. Finally, the Ducks had an elite goalie.
In 2002-03, the stars align. The Ducks finally hire an excellent coach, Mike Babcock, whose style fits their personnel. Giguere is playing like god. Kariya turns back the clock a bit and has an 80+ pt season, his final year with the Ducks, and the team finally acquires a worthy supporting cast of forwards including Adam Oates and a prime Petr Sykora. Their defense was also good that year, featuring Sandis Ozolinsh and Ruslan Salei. The team went to the Stanley Cup Finals but lost to the Devils in 7. Giggy wins the Conn Smythe.
So what if Teemu Selanne had hung around another two seasons? In the year they went to the finals, Teemu would've been their second leading scorer that season, and was still only 32 years old. The players who they traded Teemu for, Jeff Friesen and Steve Shields, were not on the roster during the 2003 Cup run. They could have kept Teemu and still acquired Oates, Sykora, and the others. And perhaps Kariya would have been even more dominant that season playing with Teemu and Oates on one line?
The Ducks never had the dominant seasons that Orlando did early on, but like the Magic, injuries and bad timing doomed them. Both went to the Finals, and while the Magic got swept, the Ducks went to Game 7.
And it is very much within the realm of possibility that if the Ducks hadn't traded Selanne, he would have been the difference between winning and losing that Stanley Cup Final against the Devils.
