St. Louis Blues
Philadelphia FlyersLast season the Anaheim Ducks were, by the chances they created, the third-best offensive team in the NHL. At 5-on-5 they generated 2.80 expected goals per 60 minutes, behind only Colorado and Carolina, and they did it with a roster whose best players were 21, 22 and 23. They won 43 games, beat Edmonton in the first round, and lost in the second. For a franchise that had missed the playoffs seven years running, it was the season the rebuild was supposed to produce.
Then the bill came. Leo Carlsson, 21 and the best of the young players, was handed a five-year, $18 million-a-year offer sheet by Philadelphia, and Anaheim matched it. Pavel Mintyukov got five years at $7.2 million. Cutter Gauthier, who scored 41 goals, is a restricted free agent still unsigned in the second week of training camp, and the freeze on his contract is a story of its own. To make room for all of it, general manager Pat Verbeek traded Mason McTavish, Olen Zellweger, Radko Gudas and John Carlson's rights inside a week in June, let Jacob Trouba walk on July 1, and terminated Chris Kreider's contract on September 10.
That is not a retool. That is the removal of four of the eight defencemen who played regular minutes on the third-best chance team in the league, three of them from the top six, and the summer's central question is whether the chance machine survives the sale.
What Anaheim was
The Ducks' 5-on-5 profile last season was lopsided in a way that is worth being precise about. They created chances at the third-best rate in the league and allowed them at the 24th-best, which nets out to a 52 percent team. They were also, by a distance, one of the unluckiest: 171 goals scored on 187 expected and 190 allowed on 173 expected. Sixteen goals of bad finishing, seventeen of bad goaltending, minus-33 in total, the third-worst luck in the NHL. A 52 percent team that was outscored by 19 at even strength and made the second round anyway is a team that was better than its results, which is the rarest and most valuable thing a young roster can be.
The engine of that chance generation was the young forwards, and Carlsson was the crank. He was on the ice for 4.50 expected goals for per 60 across all situations and a 57 percent share, scored 29 goals and 67 points in 70 games, and had 23 primary assists. At 5-on-5 his line generated 3.06 expected goals per 60 and allowed 2.50, a 55 percent share that was the best on the team among forwards who played 900 minutes. Gauthier was 58 percent across all situations with 41 goals. Beckett Sennecke, in his first full year, generated 3.15 per 60 on his own line. These are franchise numbers, and the $18 million is the price of the market having noticed.
What Anaheim sold
Here is the blue line the Ducks used last season, in 5-on-5 minutes and expected goal share, split by who is still in Anaheim.
The four who stayed are Jackson LaCombe (1,507 minutes, 53 percent), Pavel Mintyukov (1,103, 50), Drew Helleson (906, 47) and Ian Moore (845, 54). The four who left are Jacob Trouba (1,489, 50), John Carlson (1,211, 53), Olen Zellweger (1,130, 53) and Radko Gudas (805, 54).
Read that table again. Anaheim allowed chances at a bottom-nine rate last year with Carlson, Zellweger, Gudas and Trouba on the roster. It has now removed all four, replaced them with Nick Jensen, who is 35 and was a 51 percent player in Ottawa, and a pair of rookies, Tyson Hinds and Tristan Luneau, who between them played 101 NHL minutes last season. LaCombe, who is a legitimate top-pair defenceman at 25, will be asked to carry a partner he has never played with. Mintyukov, the one the Ducks paid, was a 50 percent player at 2.75 against per 60, and got $7.2 million a year for it.
There is a version of this where the defence is younger and faster and the chance suppression improves because Trouba and Gudas were slow. The numbers do not support it. Gudas was on the ice for 2.49 expected goals against per 60, second-best among the regulars behind Moore. Trouba was 2.71, worse, but he also played 1,489 minutes, the second-most on the team, and those minutes have to go somewhere. They will go to Helleson, who was 47 percent, and to the rookies.
The forward group is thinner too
McTavish's departure has been covered from the St. Louis side, where he is the right fix for a team with no chances. From the Anaheim side it is the loss of the forward who generated the most expected goals per 60 on the roster, 3.12 at 5-on-5, in exchange for two draft picks that will not play this season. His own finishing was dreadful, 17 goals on 23.5 expected, and that is the part St. Louis is betting corrects. Anaheim sold him at the bottom.
Kreider's termination removes a player who scored eight goals on 12 expected at 5-on-5, so the production is replaceable, but the minutes are not free. Troy Terry, a 55 percent player, is out at least a month with a hip injury. Granlund is 34. And Gauthier, 41 goals, is not in camp. If he signs at the number the Carlsson deal implies, the Ducks are into next summer's cap already; if he does not, the 5-on-5 chance generation that made this team interesting loses its best finisher.
The case for the summer, stated fairly
Carlsson at $18 million is a lot of money for a 21-year-old and it is also what a 21-year-old who drives a 57 percent line and scores 29 goals in 70 games costs when another team sets the price. Verbeek did not choose the number; Philadelphia did. Matching was correct, because the alternative was losing the best player the franchise has drafted in a decade for four first-round picks. Once the match was made, the cap had to come from somewhere, and Trouba at 32 and Gudas at 36 were the right contracts to move, and Carlson at 36 was never going to be re-signed. A.J. Greer, a 53 percent player in Florida at $4.25 million, is a sensible depth buy. The young defencemen have to play eventually, and a team with Carlsson, Gauthier, Sennecke and LaCombe under 26 can afford a year of learning on the back end.
Where this lands
Carlsson is a franchise centre and matching was the only choice. The contracts moved were the oldest on the roster. The forward core is 21 to 25 and generates chances like a top-three team. A year of growing pains on defence is survivable.
The four defencemen who left were the better half of a blue line that already ranked 24th at limiting chances. They are replaced by a 35-year-old and two rookies. McTavish, the roster's best chance generator per minute, was sold at his lowest value, and Gauthier is unsigned.
What it means
The Ducks will score more this season than last, because 16 goals of finishing luck at 5-on-5 does not stay negative and because Carlsson, Gauthier and Sennecke are a year older. Watch the other end. Anaheim allowed 2.59 expected goals per 60 at 5-on-5 last season with a blue line it has since taken apart. If that number is above 2.75 by December, the Ducks are a team that has to win 4-3 every night, and no team does that for 82 games. If it holds near 2.60 with Hinds and Luneau playing real minutes, then Verbeek's read on his own prospects was right and the summer will look like the beginning of something rather than the sale of it. And sign Gauthier. Every day he is not on the ice is a day the chance machine runs without its best finisher.