No matter how much they might hope otherwise, the Anaheim Ducks are not in the “mushy middle” in the NHL with nearly two-thirds of the season gone. To say they are, and be sincere about it, you would have to believe that they have a chance to make the playoffs.
With a record of 20-23-6 exiting the weekend, the post-season is not likely. Right now, they sit 13th in the West, nine points out of even wild card contention. They are in what might be called the “flyover zone,” which is that group of teams that other clubs need to leapfrog if they want to make the post-season.
Who gets to determine which teams fall into which category? You, me, internet experts—whoever has a platform and an opinion to share on it. Currently, the team in the West that would get high consideration would be Nashville, which many people can’t quite believe is dead in the water at this point, given the high-profile, high hopes they had coming into the campaign.
So we’re resigning Anaheim to golfing in April, because they’re not going to leapfrog all of Seattle, Utah, Saint Louis, and Vancouver to get to Calgary, currently the second wild card holder. But that doesn’t mean that Anaheim is not worth watching, nor that they don’t have skills. In fact, they have heart and skill in abundance, and a future that most observers see as hopeful.
How can we understand Anaheim’s potential? They’re at their best when both Mason McTavish and Trevor Zeras are doing their very opposite things. On a given night, that night mean Zegras buzzing around the zone, carrying the puck, dangling. He did this versus the Predators last weekend, opening up so much space for himself that the reporter sitting next to me in the press box whispered, “That’s a Michigan [goal] coming.” Zegras didn’t try that, but he might have, or at least, there’s always that threat.
Tuesday against the Kraken in Seattle, he deftly moved behind the net and fed the puck softly but accurately to the slot. It came to nothing, but it did demo this guy’s silky hands.
McTavish, by contrast, is a smash-mouth player, as likely to be flying through the goal crease all splayed out in the air as to be gliding towards it with the grace of a swan. Versus the Predators, he was good for two goals, and just missed a hat trick on an empty net. Zegras, for his part, had a goal and an assist. The two were first and second stars, with the third member of the stars club being Jackson Lacombe, who plays defense and contributed an assist in Anaheim’s 5-2 victory.
Versus the Kraken, McTavish blasted a one-timer from the right dot to gain a 3-3 tie. It was pure power. Then he set up Fabbri to make the game 4-3 for the Ducks. His goal was his sixth in the last four games.
Zegras, by contrast, is finesse. Thing is, Zegras has been hurt each of the last two seasons, and this year, he just came off of IR, playing his third game versus Nashville. When asked after the contest how he felt, he said, “I hink [my game] is good. Obviously when you’re playing with Leo [Carlsson] and [Killorn], it makes the job pretty easy. They make so many plays and create so much space that you just try to help out where you can.”
And when asked to comment on McTavish, he said, “It’s nice to see [the puck] going in for him. We’ve been calling him Ironsides because he hits a lot of posts and crossbars.”
The Ducks are also at their best when Troy Terry is playing his scoring game. It’s tempting to call him a player who reminds one of Ryan Getzlaf, a big center who dominates in the circle, but Terry is not as large. He’s not slight, but he’s thinner and more delicate-looking than Getzlaf, and let’s just say that he’s not likely to get into a punch-up at center ice with today’s equivalent of Joe Thornton, as Getzlaf memorably did in the playoffs a dozen or so years ago. (I remember the event more than the date, I will confess.)
Where else in the lineup can we look? To make an impact, this season or in a future one, the Ducks need to have Lukas Dostal keep up his game-saving ways. He did that handsomely with the Nashville Predators in town on Saturday night, coming in after one period in place of the injured (upper body) John Gibson. Dostal made 32 saves to secure the win. He won again versus Seattle, albeit while allowing four goals.
What about goalie Gibson? I’ll bet I’m not the only one who hears trade rumors about him and thinks about that old story about the boy who cried wolf. He’s been going to Pittsburgh, Colorado, and elsewhere, never actually getting to the stage of packing a bag. I for one am quite happy to continue to watch him in Anaheim. He’ a cool customer, a goaltender with just enough raggedy edges to be real, not a robo-goalie whose whole life is “save selection” and “Reverse VH.” And he’s way better than his record indicates. His numbers are what they are because he plays behind a leaky defense many nights.
If he wants to win a Stanley Cup, he’s going to have to go somewhere eise, and that’s what today’s players still yearn for, we are told. Perhaps the lure of sun and sportscars is more real than we know, though, as Gibson keeps not going anywhere despite rumors to the contrary. He’s certainly worth more than his 6.4 million-dollar deal. Heck, didn’t another goalie get twice that of late?
Who else should you watch? Cutter Gauthier, playing right now with McTavish and Robbi Fabbri. This is Gauthier’s NHL debut season. He’s from Sweden, which his name does not give away, of course. He has passed the 20-point mark already, including one in Seattle.
There’s the supporting cast—Frank Vatrano, Fabri, Ryan Strome, and others. Notice no defensive players have been named yet. This is not a spectacular backline, though Jackson LaCombe is playing well and doing a decent job putting up points. He got the Ducks’ fifth goal versus Seattle. Vatrano chipped in a goal as well, his third in the last four games.
As a team, the Ducks are more entertaining when they play a fast and loose kind of game, no matter how nervous that makes their coach. Saturday, he described their game by saying, “I told them after the game that that was like a 1980s Oilers-Flames game for God’s sake. Up and down rushes, trading breakaways and two-on-ones. We knew going into the game that they had changed their style a little bit, into a gun-and-run or run-and-gun. They’re obviously really talented.”
Tuesday in Seattle, it was even more crazy. The two teams, for instance, combined for 33 shots on goal through two periods. That’s usually good for three tallies. Try eight on this night, as the teams went to their respective rooms with the Ducks up 5-3 after two. This on the strength of three Anaheim goals to none for Seattle in the middle frame. It was the third game in a row where the Ducks scored five goals. The game did settle down in period three, with the Ducks adding an empty-net-goal to make the final 6-4. This was the first time since October, against Detroit, where they put up six goals.
This win put them on a three-game win streak and made them 9-8-3 in their last 20 road games, and it had their coach, and probably some fans, saying “wild card” once more, maybe rightly so, as they took over possession of 12th place in the West with the win.
