Are The Anaheim Ducks The Team To Beat In The NHL?
By Daniel
Should the Anaheim Ducks Be Considered Stanley Cup Favorites This Year In The NHL?
The Ducks of Anaheim (21-7-5) are leading the NHL with 47 points, but that’s not the only reason why many consider them the team to beat in the NHL this year. This team has all of the components of a Stanley Cup contender and they’re an incredibly hungry squad.
This is evidenced by the fact that Anaheim owns a nine-point lead over the second place team in the Pacific Division. The second largest division lead in the NHL is only two points (Pittsburgh in the Metropolitan Division). That tells you everything you need to know about how the Ducks are dominating so far in 2014-15. Sure the Pacific might not be quite as deep as the other divisions, but a nine-point lead simply cannot be ignored.
The Ducks are led by the sensational duo of captain center Ryan Getzlaf and right winger Corey Perry. Getzlaf is leading the team with a phenomenal 34 points in 32 games — good for eighth best in the NHL. Despite the fact that Perry has been out for two weeks with a knee injury (and will be out for at least another week) he’s still leading the team in goals scored. He put up 14 goals in his first 23 games played, but his teammate and left winger Matt Beleskey has finally tied him with 14 goals of his own. It’s not as if the Ducks stopped scoring when Perry got hurt.
This team kept playing great because it boasts incredible depth with center Ryan Kesler (26 points) and defenseman Sami Vatanen (22 points) joining Beleskey as solid point-producing players each night. Kesler is one of the more underrated stars in the NHL and Vatanen is one of the league’s burgeoning stars on the blue line. Once Perry comes back this team will have a plethora of scoring options and I didn’t even mention two other relatively young players that are continuing to develop nicely. Those players are defensemen Cam Fowler (17 points) and Jakob Silfverberg (16 points).
Plus rookie defenseman Hampus Lindholm is heating up as of late and is looking like another huge piece for this team. He has seven points in the Ducks’ last 10 games. As you can see this team has a great balance of experienced players and no shortage of top-notch young talent. That combination can be deadly and it clearly is for Anaheim.
Not to mention this team doesn’t rely on the power play for offense. It generates the majority of its scoring chances in 5-on-5 scenarios and that will only help this team as the playoffs near and refs start inevitably biting their whistles more often.
It’s important to note that this team didn’t just rack up a bunch of points early in the year though. This team was hot early and still is. Over it’s last ten games it is 7-3, even without their star goal scorer Perry. Yet it’s not just the skaters that have this team playing so well this year.
At the goaltender position the Ducks have been incredibly blessed with youngster Frederik Andersen between the pipes. His sparkling 17-5-4 record has the whole city of Anaheim excited. Although this team has a great backup netminder, too. That player is John Gibson who has been out for a month with a groin injury, but he is slowly making his way back to the team.
Once Gibson is back to 100 percent this young duo will be one of the most dangerous goalie combinations in the NHL. Both will be fresh when the playoffs roll around and that spells trouble for the rest of the Western Conference. This is especially true because hot, young goaltenders have been known to carry teams through the Western Conference in the playoffs in recent history. What do they say about history? That’s right, it repeats itself.
Yet I feel the No. 1 intangible that the Anaheim Ducks boast is their undeniable hunger. In the last two seasons this team has finished in first place of the Pacific Division and entered the playoffs with soaring Cup aspirations. But in consecutive seasons they have been knocked out before reaching the Western Conference Finals. Both of those series went seven games and in both of those games the Ducks’ hearts were broken.
This group of players has two years of great play and confidence and two years of bitter frustration bubbling in their blood. The 2014-15 season is the year that the Ducks break through and play for Lord Stanley’s Cup. Don’t be surprised if they’re hoisting it at the season’s end.
The talent is there, the experience is there, the youth and energy is there — this roster has it all. Anaheim boasts the sixth-best offense (97 goals scored) as far as goals scored is allowed and still features a respectable defense. Its goaltenders have proved to be up to the task and their young players are seemingly all emerging at the same time. Their leader is the fearless and gritty Getzlaf and there isn’t one quality that this team lacks.
It should be noted that this team is great at home (10-3-3) and arguably better on the road (11-4-2). The other contenders around the league this year are simply not as balanced as this team is. In the NHL it takes an entire roster to raise a banner.
It’s the year of the Ducks, folks. Anaheim truly is the team to beat in the NHL in 2014-15.