Speculation: How do you think Ducks will finish this coming season in goals per game and against?

[Ducks in a row]

Last season the Ducks had been 11th in goals per game at 2.78 and 20th against at 2.70 according to NHL.com

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[Kalv]

Offense should be better and for some reason i think it would help get better at GA. Hope. That is just hope, probably, because last years GA was just brutal

 

[TopShelfWaterBottle]

Offense should be better and for some reason i think it would help get better at GA. Hope. That is just hope, probably, because last years GA was just brutal

Aw the Trent yawney effect

 

[GermanRocket7]

2.93 GF and 2.41 GA in Regular Season.
3.46 GF and 2.26 GA in Playoffs.

Yes, I fully expect them to be much better next season, especially with lots of our younger players having gained experience and adding veterans into the mix in order to calm down our "weak one period" phases. Also, expect our special teams to be a league better than last year. I'd say we have a legitimate shot at 21% or 22% on the PP.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Last year Perry was out with mumps and injury missing a lot of games and that had a effect on our offense.

Last year we had a lot of man games lost from the blueline I don't think will have so many games missed this coming season. Also last year Gibson was hurt and we didn't have the goalie depth we have now so we won't be having a LaBarbera and Bryzgalov starting 13 games.

I am expecting both goals for and against to improve. I think our offense should be in the top 10 and hoping the power play improves. If we are in the bottom half of the league in goals against again I would be surprised and not happy.

 

[mytduxfan*]

I fully expect GF to go up as we're much deeper than last season. GA should also improve, but only marginally. I'm not convinced yet that Andersen can play all year at the elite level we saw in last seasons playoffs. He's shown elite ability, but we know that his biggest issue is consistency. I'm also not as confident in Bieksa as I was in Beauchemin.

 

[Lord Flashheart]

I expect about the same.

 

[Quack Shot]

Our GA will be better cuz Bryz and Labarbera won't be in net for a few games and tilt the scales so badly. GF should stay about the same.

 

[ohcomeonref]

I expect a big swing for our PP this year, I'm not sure our GA will drop that much though.

 

[Kalv]

In GAA the 2 previous years we were around #10. And then we signed defensive minded Yawney

But in playoffs we were only slightly worse than Blackhawks - we were both pretty bad actually

 

[TheJoeMan]

Assuming we don't suffer as many man-games lost to injury this season as we did last (we lost 236 to forwards and d-men so let's just cut that in half to 118) this is what all of our skaters should produce based on their career averages and the amount of games I think we can expect them to play (I also threw in a few rookies and had them produce like call-ups have in the past):

Player GP G A P
Getzlaf 77 22-50-72
Perry 79 32-31-63
Kesler 76 20-23-43
Vatanen 79 14-27-41
Stewart 74 20-20-40
Hagelin 80 17-21-38
Silfverberg 81 13-24-37
Maroon 75 9-25-34
Cogliano 82 15-18-33
Fowler 80 7-25-32
Lindholm 79 7-25-32
Rakell 77 9-22-31
Horcoff 74 10-16-26
Bieksa 70 6-20-26
Santorelli 70 11-14-25
Despres 77 3-18-21
Sekac 50 6-10-16
Thompson 52 4-5-9
Stoner 71 1-6-7
Jackman 18 2-1-3
Theodore 10 1-1-2
Wagner 8 0-2-2
Holzer 12 0-2-2
Manson 14 0-2-2
Ritchie 5 1-0-1
Noesen 3 0-1-1
Friberg 3 0-0-0

That's 230 goals or 2.80 goals-per game. I threw in the assists and points too just because I had crunched all of those numbers and have been looking for a context for them. But again that's based purely on their averages and assuming we lose 118 man-games to injury. That's still pretty high though we have about 20-30 guaranteed with Thompson. But those numbers could go a lot higher. Perry could hit 40, Maroon and Rakell should get more than ten, Silfverberg could have a big year. I think we'll be closer to 250 in goals if I were to make a prediction.

As for the goalies I figure we'll give up similar amount of shots as we've had lately (28.7 in 13-14 and 28.8 in 14-15). Gibson and Andersen had .914 averages last season and with Khudobin they have a combined career average of about .918. I'll split the difference and say they stop .916 percent of shots with will yield 199 goals against or 2.42 goals-against average. Again, I think it could be better than that but that's what we should expect at least.

So at the very least we should see a goal-differential of +31. Like I said I think they'll do better than that. I think we can score as many as 250 goals and give up as few as 194. So 3.04 and 2.36.

edit: That's not counting empty-net goals either. We gave up eight last so assuming we give up the same amount our team goals-against should be at least 2.52. So if we're closer to a .918 percentage like I think we will it'll be 2.46 as a team.

 

[Static]

I don't think we will go through the inury gauntlet of last year and do think goaltending will be better. I think goal scoring will be slightly worse, around league average.

So, I'll predict 14th on offense, 9th on defense.

 

[Ducks Nation*]

The power play has to be better, and hopefully we don't have another mumps breakout

 

[TheJoeMan]

I don't think we will go through the inury gauntlet of last year and do think goaltending will be better. I think goal scoring will be slightly worse, around league average.

So, I'll predict 14th on offense, 9th on defense.

Why would our offense be worse? I think it's safe to say losing well over 200 man-games from our skaters due to injury last season hurt our offense significantly and we were still 11th in the league. If you think we're going to be a lot healthier then why shouldn't we be more productive too?

 

[Static]

Why would our offense be worse? I think it's safe to say losing well over 200 man-games from our skaters due to injury last season hurt our offense significantly and we were still 11th in the league. If you think we're going to be a lot healthier then why shouldn't we be more productive too?

Luck, and we lost more production than we gained. An insane amount of offense came from our defense last year, I think it's naive to expect the same.

 

[Hockey Duckie]

Last year Perry was out with mumps and injury missing a lot of games and that had a effect on our offense.

Last year we had a lot of man games lost from the blueline I don't think will have so many games missed this coming season. Also last year Gibson was hurt and we didn't have the goalie depth we have now so we won't be having a LaBarbera and Bryzgalov starting 13 games.

I am expecting both goals for and against to improve. I think our offense should be in the top 10 and hoping the power play improves. If we are in the bottom half of the league in goals against again I would be surprised and not happy.

I like following Perry. He should be able to score more goals next year.

Year| GP|Perry Goals| Western Rank
10-11| 82| 50| 1
11-12| 80| 37| 1
12-13| 44| 15| 17
13-14| 81| 43| 1
14-15| 67| 33| 5

In 2012-13, the shortened season for the NHL, that was the last year of Perry's middle contract. It was affecting him a lot. There was an article during the 2013-14 season that had Perry admit that becoming a FA was affecting his game. Once he got it signed, Perry then again reigned supreme in the Western Rank in goal scoring.

In 2014-15, Perry was out with the mumps and yet ranked in the top 5 in the Western conference. Among those six players in the top 5 rankings, Perry had the fewest games play in 67 games.

Perry usually averages 80 games played per season. So let's his stats this season of 33 goals in 67 games and extrapolate that to 80 games. Using the ratio of this season and using 80 games instead, Perry would have scored 39 goals. He would be ranked #1 again in the Western Conference in goal scoring.

The additional six goals actually represent a 2.5% in goal scoring increase.

 

[TheJoeMan]

Luck, and we lost more production than we gained. An insane amount of offense came from our defense last year, I think it's naive to expect the same.

We lost Beleskey, Palmieri, Etem, Fleischmann and Beauchemin who combined for 53 goals. They're being replaced by Hagelin, Horcoff, Stewart, Santorelli and Bieksa who combined to score 57 goals last season. We flat out did not lose more offense. And so what if a lot of our offense came from our defense? Other than Beauch's totals those numbers weren't a fluke. If it were based on high power play numbers that could be one thing but that wasn't the case at all.

The totals I provided our based off career averages of each player. In order for us not to hit at least 230 goals (which is about what we scored last year) each player would either have to be stagnant or digress. That's crazy. This team wasn't lucky last year. They were incredibly unlucky with injuries. They should have scored a lot more than they did. Luck! Give me a break.

 

[Ducks Nation*]

I think everything will be a tiny bit better, but we will be better in post-season with the pickups of veterans we made.

 

[AngelDuck]

Hard for me to see Fowler shooting 8% next year when he's a career 6% shooter
Hard for me to see Vatanen shooting 10% for another full season (that's an unprecedented shooting percentage for a defenseman - not a knock on him, he's still really good. I just expect his goals to go down and assists to probably go up next year)
Hard for me to see Bieksa shooting anywhere near the 10% Beauch shot last year (lol).

So yeah, the D was lucky when it came to goal scoring last year. The good news is that with the exception of Beauch (bieksa), they're all still developing and could end up increasing their shot totals this year (hopefully)

The forwards are better all around this year but Beleskey rode high last year with some high shooting % all year so I don't expect that to necessarily repeat. Hagelin should be good for 15-20, Stewart should be good for 15-20, Silfverberg is going to score at least 15, probably closer to 20 (significant Increase over last year). I think we'll get more than 9 from Maroon this year too.

I'm going to say we'll score just barely more this year than we did last year. We'll also keep more pucks out of the net this year.

7th in goals for, 13th in goals against...pretty good improvement all around

 

[Static]

We lost Beleskey, Palmieri, Etem, Fleischmann and Beauchemin who combined for 53 goals. They're being replaced by Hagelin, Horcoff, Stewart, Santorelli and Bieksa who combined to score 57 goals last season. We flat out did not lose more offense. And so what if a lot of our offense came from our defense? Other than Beauch's totals those numbers weren't a fluke. If it were based on high power play numbers that could be one thing but that wasn't the case at all.

The totals I provided our based off career averages of each player. In order for us not to hit at least 230 goals (which is about what we scored last year) each player would either have to be stagnant or digress. That's crazy. This team wasn't lucky last year. They were incredibly unlucky with injuries. They should have scored a lot more than they did. Luck! Give me a break.

Quit shouting.

 

[TheJoeMan]

Hard for me to see Fowler shooting 8% next year when he's a career 6% shooter
Hard for me to see Vatanen shooting 10% for another full season (that's an unprecedented shooting percentage for a defenseman - not a knock on him, he's still really good. I just expect his goals to go down and assists to probably go up next year)
Hard for me to see Bieksa shooting anywhere near the 10% Beauch shot last year (lol).

So yeah, the D was lucky when it came to goal scoring last year. The good news is that with the exception of Beauch (bieksa), they're all still developing and could end up increasing their shot totals this year (hopefully)

The forwards are better all around this year but Beleskey rode high last year with some high shooting % all year so I don't expect that to necessarily repeat. Hagelin should be good for 15-20, Stewart should be good for 15-20, Silfverberg is going to score at least 15, probably closer to 20 (significant Increase over last year). I think we'll get more than 9 from Maroon this year too.

I'm going to say we'll score just barely more this year than we did last year. We'll also keep more pucks out of the net this year.

7th in goals for, 13th in goals against...pretty good improvement all around

We were sixth last year in scoring from defensemen with 41 goals. The league average was 35. My estimates have our defense scoring 39 goals and that includes only two of our d-men (Vatanen and Bieksa) exceeding their previous year's totals by two each. I don't think what our d-men achieved last year was any kind of fluke outside of Beauch's totals. They should be expected to put up those kind of numbers again, especially if our power play improves.

 

[salsa man]

I don't think we will go through the inury gauntlet of last year and do think goaltending will be better. I think goal scoring will be slightly worse, around league average.

So, I'll predict 14th on offense, 9th on defense.

I think we'll be better on offense, assuming Perry plays the full season and guys like Maroon, Silfverberg, and Vatanen continue to improve their point totals.

 

[darkwingduck]

Young players Hampus, Vats, Rakell, Sekac, Silf etc all a year older and more mature. Chances of mumps has dramatically decreased. I think we should be better in Goals against and Goals for due to these and we are not using Bryz (no matter how much I enjoy him, he wasn't good last year).

 

[42]

Last season the Ducks had been 11th in goals per game at 2.78 and 20th against at 2.70 according to NHL.com

That's very surprising to me given that the Ducks finished with the 3rd best record overall. I know they won a ton of 1-goal games so maybe a little luck was involved.

I would think with the addition of Khudobin and Andersen not having to play so many back-to-back games, GAA would surely improve.

 

[Getzmonster]

I don't think personnel is going to be the big difference maker as far as our rank on the stat sheet goes. All things considered, we've probably gained a little more consistency from period to period with the addition of a few more worker bees, though offensive consistency is probably just as much a question mark as it would have been had Murray made no changes at all this summer.

This "win small, lose big" thing that the team struggled with last season was largely due to an insane run of bad injury luck and some pretty unspecial, special teams. If not for those two issues, the Ducks by rights were a top 5 offensive team and top 10 defensive team last season. So, if the team can be notably healthier this coming season, and if both the PP and PK can be even slightly above average or better (both are entering the season with at least some promise of improving -- MacLean hopefully helping the PP and Hags adding another weapon on the PK), we should easily be among the top teams on both ends of the ice.

Another lesser point would be goaltending. I'm a Freddie believer and expect him to take his game up another notch after the letdown last year, but at the very least I expect to get much, much better performances out of Khudobin than we did out of LaBarbs and Bryz. I also expect Bieksa to be a slight downgrade to Beauch, which isn't really saying much, and that Hampus might struggle a little more without Franky. So the slight bump in goaltending should offset the slight downgrade on the back end. I don't want to derail the thread, so let's just say that I have nothing to back up either statement, it's purely a gut feeling.

What really matters though, is how the Ducks perform in the playoffs. The Ducks entered the playoffs much healthier than they had been for most of the season, and ended up finishing 1st in the playoffs offensively and 10th defensively (gf/g and ga/g). For perspective, the Hawks finished the postseason 3rd in scoring and 9th defensively. So I don't think it's critical that the Ducks be top 5 in both categories to go all the way, as proven by the Hawks, they just need to among the top teams (top 5-10 seems like a fair benchmark to me) and get the right matchups, along with some timely, clutch performances here and there. The latter is something we certainly lacked last season (playoffs) and is one of my concerns going forward seemingly unaddressed. I'd put an asterisk by that though, as it's a separate discussion.

All the roster debate aside, I'd say staying healthy is this team's biggest hurdle towards winning it all next season, and to stay on topic, a healthier team finishes higher in GF/G and GA/G.