Better luck next year: Progress is slow in rebuilds, and the Anaheim Ducks can relate
A lost season for Trevor Zegras, another bad year for the team, but with the emergence of a potential superstar.
Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Anaheim Ducks
If you are the fan of an NHL team that is just starting a rebuild (San Jose, Chicago) or very close to needing to start one (Pittsburgh, Washington) there is one very important thing you need to keep in mind.
It is not going to be quick.
Full-scale rebuilds take time, progress is typically slow, and not every young player or prospect is going to pan out exactly as you hope. Even if they do end up getting to where you want them there are going to be some rough patches along the way.
Rebuilds are not rapid. They are typically glacial.
All of that brings us to the Anaheim Ducks, who are in the process of completing another dreadful season that has them near the bottom of the NHL standings.
On the surface, when it comes to wins and losses, things look bleak. The Ducks are on pace for the exact same point total as they had a year ago when they finished with a league-worst 58 points and haven’t really taken an obvious step forward.
But when you dig down below the surface there are some obvious signs of progress, ranging from improved defensive metrics statistically to a more structured style of play under first-year head coach Greg Cronin.
Some examples:
They went from allowing a league-worst 3.41 expected goals against per 60 minutes (5-on-5 play) a year ago (a number that was nearly a half-goal worst than the next worst team, Columbus at 3.01) to allowing just 2.66 expected goals per 60 minutes. That is number that actually took them out of the bottom-10 league wide. That’s a huge improvement. Massive, even.
They also saw their expected goal share go from (again) a league-worst 39.9 percent to a more NHL-worthy 45.9 percent. Still bad, but a nearly six percent increase.
Both of those improvements were the largest jump any team in the NHL made in either category, and it was not even close. Their expected goals against change was 0.75. The next best improvement in the league was Nashville with a 0.41 goal improvement.
In terms of actual goals against, they went from 3.37 against per 60 minutes to 2.82, an improvement of 0.55 goals. That was the fifth-best improvement in the NHL.
When it comes to suppressing chances and preventing goals during 5-on-5 play it would have been almost impossible to improve more than the Ducks did from one season to the next.
But that just highlights the reality of how slow progress is when you are going from rock-bottom and trying to turn yourself back into a contender. When you are at the absolute bottom of the pile you can improve, quite literally, more than any other team in the NHL and still find yourself in a situation where your team is, objectively speaking, bad. Very bad.
Even worse, it is significantly harder to go from 20th in the league to the top-10 than it is to go from 32nd to 20th. When you’re in the latter situation there is literally nowhere to go but up. Almost anything is an improvement. When you start getting back into the range of actual NHL-caliber play, things get tougher.
It is a long, slow climb back to the top
So let’s talk about what helped the Ducks, what hurt the Ducks, and what is next for them as they try to keep climbing the NHL standings.
Everything that went wrong
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