Anaheim best record in the league...+8 Goal Differential

[Bender66]

Previous 2 years the Ducks won by outscoring their opponents, and the critics called it luck.

Ducks changed their lineup and style so that they now focus on being able to win games defensively and critics still call it luck.

Unsustainable! They must be the luckiest ******** in the world to be unsustainable for 4 seasons. Forget playing hockey, every member of the Ducks team and coaching staff must go out and buy powerball tickets today. Who needs an NHL paycheck when you can win by being lucky.

 

[Starbuds]

Sheldon Souray will be back any day now. He'll right the ship.

 

[Samzilla]

Previous 2 years the Ducks won by outscoring their opponents, and the critics called it luck.

Ducks changed their lineup and style so that they now focus on being able to win games defensively and critics still call it luck.

Unsustainable! They must be the luckiest ******** in the world to be unsustainable for 4 seasons. Forget playing hockey, every member of the Ducks team and coaching staff must go out and buy powerball tickets today. Who needs an NHL paycheck when you can win by being lucky.

yup, the whole world's against you

 

[Lord Flashheart]

Casual HF statistician would have seen the outcome of the game against Preds and thought "there they go again, luck to a 1 goal win". He would then proceed to see the outcome against the Rangers and would conclude "they are showing their true colours".

On the other hand person that has seen both of the games would have seen that Ducks undoubtedly outplayed (not to be confused with dominated) Nashville at even strength (except OT) and the reason it was close was that Ducks were undisciplined and Nashville was excellent with the man advantage, and that against the Rangers it was a hard fought game (albeit not the most interesting one) where Rangers capitalised on the mistakes Ducks made. It paints a bit different picture, but casual HF statistician is not interested in these minutiae.

So many of our fans are afraid to admit that we're not the number one contender, and I don't know why. We're not the best team in the league. We've got the best point percentage in the league. The two are not equal.

Are we a good team? Yes. Are we mainly carried by a handful of players? Yes. We need better depth. Especially on defense. Fowler, Beauchemin, Lindholm, and Vatanen are the makings of a solid core. We're still short a solid, two-way top-four defenseman to pair with Fowler though.

A lot of the time you post I have a feeling you are actually arguing with yourself. If you can factually support your claim in the first sentence I will refrain from posting for a full year.

 

[JaegerDice]

Previous 2 years the Ducks won by outscoring their opponents, and the critics called it luck.

Ducks changed their lineup and style so that they now focus on being able to win games defensively and critics still call it luck.

Unsustainable! They must be the luckiest ******** in the world to be unsustainable for 4 seasons. Forget playing hockey, every member of the Ducks team and coaching staff must go out and buy powerball tickets today. Who needs an NHL paycheck when you can win by being lucky.

Your team's strategy for being able to win games defensively is to get significantly worse in both goals against AND shots against per game (from 9th in both categories last year, to 18th in both categories this year)? That seems like an odd way to enhance defense.

The underlying problems with the Ducks are the same. Relying on shooting percentage to cover for mediocre possession.

The pattern of the last 4 years is likely to continue. Particularly in the playoffs.

 

[Arthuros]

Ducks fans, abort thread. We shall be overrated until we fall out of playoff contention, after which we shall fade into obscurity in the depths of our own forums.

Hide yourselves. There is no saving grace. Our mediocrity has been exposed.

EDIT: You as well, every non-Hawks/Kings fan. You're all chokers. You haven't won a cup in the past 4 years, have you?

 

[Sean Garrity]

18th in goals per game. 18th in goals against per game.

1st in points.

Something doesn't add up.

Then try division.

 

[Bender66]

Ducks fans, abort thread. We shall be overrated until we fall out of playoff contention, after which we shall fade into obscurity in the depths of our own forums.

Hide yourselves. There is no saving grace. Our mediocrity has been exposed.

EDIT: You as well, every non-Hawks/Kings fan. You're all chokers. You haven't won a cup in the past 4 years, have you?

Duh. Don't you know that Hawks and Kings are winning cups at a mathematically unsustainable rate? I dont even need super predictive crazy advanced stats. Its totally unsustainable! (There's that fun word again. It's so fun to say I'll just keep repeating it until someone thinks I'm super smart. SMRT! Unsustainable!

 

[KaseMeOutside]

Lets expand past this year.

From 2009-2010 season. (6 seasons)

Anaheim is 73-30 in one goal games in regulation. (OT/SO not counted as technically that is a tied game, they aren't leading/trailing at the end.)

That is a .708 win %, next highest team is .580%

Now in those 6 seasons, probably around 90% of the players are different now from the beginning, new coaches, for whatever reason Anaheim has a knack for winning these close games.

6 seasons of luck and overacheiving, with completely different rosters. Anaheim is a team of try hards.

and the critics, rightly or wrongly, would point to how poorly the team has performed in the playoffs.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

Previous 2 years the Ducks won by outscoring their opponents, and the critics called it luck.

Ducks changed their lineup and style so that they now focus on being able to win games defensively and critics still call it luck.

Unsustainable! They must be the luckiest ******** in the world to be unsustainable for 4 seasons. Forget playing hockey, every member of the Ducks team and coaching staff must go out and buy powerball tickets today. Who needs an NHL paycheck when you can win by being lucky.

the style hasn't changed, the team just flatout has less depth, and is back to relying on a couple of players to produce most of the offense

 

[AngelDuck]

The Ducks are a good team that is flawed and clearly in need of additional pieces in order to be considered a legit Stanley Cup Contender.

I think everyone can agree with that statement

 

[MrMariusz]

NSH wouldve been top of the league for a while now if they didn't have so many games in hand.

 

[Nasti]

I don't think it's worth getting upset over when people point out what should be a concern to all Ducks fans. You guys get annoyed at the "unsustainable" talk yet if you look at the playoffs, that holds true. Boudreau's Ducks have yet to get beyond the second round despite having home ice in every series.

 

[OCSportsfan]

I don't think it's worth getting upset over when people point out what should be a concern to all Ducks fans. You guys get annoyed at the "unsustainable" talk yet if you look at the playoffs, that holds true. Boudreau's Ducks have yet to get beyond the second round despite having home ice in every series.

The last 4 years the Ducks have NOT had enough good players to win in the playoffs (just compare the rosters to the Kings/Chicago) The teams were flawed but were able to overcome this during the year with depth and good goaltending in addition to a coach that gets players to exceed their expectations (see Washington before he took over)

In the playoffs it is more about how many great players you have since the amount of minutes the 4th line or 3rd pairing get goes down. The Ducks could not match up, not because of coaching, or Advanced stats, just because they were not as good. Last year they were close, and could have done something, but played a terrible game 7.

This years goal differential is obviously a result of the number of 1 goal games won, and the lopsided losses. They are still a top 6 team in the league on any given night.

 

[Paul4587]

The Ducks are a good team that is flawed and clearly in need of additional pieces in order to be considered a legit Stanley Cup Contender.

I think everyone can agree with that statement

Pretty much. I think the huge favorite right now is Chicago. They're the team to beat and as of right now the Ducks are a fair bit behind them.

 

[The Duck Knight]

Pretty much. I think the huge favorite right now is Chicago. They're the team to beat and as of right now the Ducks are a fair bit behind them.

Agreed. I think as far as Cup contenders it's something like this in no specific order after Chicago.

Chicago

Pittsburgh
NYR
LA
Nashville
Anaheim
Montreal
Tampa

NYI
St. Louis

Although, I will point out one thing. Since '05 the Ducks have the best record against the Hawks of any team in the league. For whatever reason they always seem to play well against Chicago.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

I don't think it's worth getting upset over when people point out what should be a concern to all Ducks fans. You guys get annoyed at the "unsustainable" talk yet if you look at the playoffs, that holds true. Boudreau's Ducks have yet to get beyond the second round despite having home ice in every series.

except that is an idiotic reason to say they lost in the playoffs.
how is losing a game 7 relevant to advanced stats? anyone into statistics knows sample size matters.
game 7's are coin flips.

they weren't even supposed to be good the previous 2 years for ****s sake, which people here forget

 

[SmokeyDuck]

I don't think anyone is in as good as a position as Anaheim. Top of their division, slowly getting healthier, and a butt load of assets to help push them over the top at the deadline. I'm excited to say the least, but there are a couple holes that need to be plugged and I hope BM can man up and make it happen.

 

[mmbt]

except that is an idiotic reason to say they lost in the playoffs.
how is losing a game 7 relevant to advanced stats? anyone into statistics knows sample size matters.
game 7's are coin flips.

they weren't even supposed to be good the previous 2 years for ****s sake, which people here forget

Yeah, the shooting % was supposed to be unsustainable beyond 1 season. Then 2 seasons. And so on. If it's gone on this long, clearly there's a flaw in the idea that high shooting % is a matter of "luck." Which if I were into advanced stats, I would start questioning how to better incorporate the Ducks' continued winning into my analysis, rather than claim they're some sort of multiple-season outlier.

Also, to point to a SMALLER sample size (ie. the playoffs) as evidence of something that's supposed to be unsustainable, while ignoring the LARGER sample sizes (ie. the last 3-4 seasons) where such a thing is sustained ... anyone who does that should never talk statistics again, unless it's to admit that they know nothing about statistics.