Anaheim Sold the Blue Line. The Offence Went With It.

The Ducks lost 6-5 in overtime at home on Tuesday to a Vancouver team that had lost ten games in a row. It dropped Anaheim to 5-6-1. The Ducks won four of their first five games, including road wins in Vegas, Winnipeg and Calgary, and they have won one of seven since.

In September we wrote that Anaheim paid Leo Carlsson $18 million and sold the blue line to do it. Four of the eight defencemen who played regular minutes on a team that created the third-most chances in the league were gone by the start of camp, and the question was whether the chance machine would survive. We expected the damage to show up in the Ducks' own end. It has. What we did not expect is how much it would cost them going the other way.

How much has Anaheim changed?

A lot. Last season the Ducks had 52 per cent of the expected goals, tied for sixth, because they created chances at the third-best rate in the NHL and could live with a below-average defence. This season both ends have moved the wrong way.

The goals have actually been kinder than the chances. Anaheim has been outscored only 25-24 at five-on-five because it is finishing slightly above expected and Lukas Dostal and Ville Husso have been about average. Last season the opposite was true: the Ducks were the better team and the results were worse. This season the results flatter a team that is getting out-chanced most nights.

Why did the offence break as well?

Because a lot of the offence started on the blue line. A team's chance creation at five-on-five depends heavily on how cleanly it gets the puck out of its own end and through the neutral zone, and that work belonged to defencemen who are now playing elsewhere. Olen Zellweger scored the winner for Buffalo on Tuesday. Jacob Trouba has eight points in San Jose. John Carlson has five in Tampa Bay. Mason McTavish, the forward who went to St. Louis in the same week, is generating more individual chances at five-on-five than any forward in the league.

The forwards who stayed have felt it. Here is how the core players have changed from last season to this one.

Leo Carlsson still leads the team with 15 points, and Beckett Sennecke has seven goals. Their point totals are fine, but the chances they are on the ice for have fallen sharply. Cutter Gauthier, who scored 41 goals last season, has two goals on 38 shots and has been on the ice for 4.05 expected goals against per 60 at five-on-five, the worst rate among Anaheim's regular forwards. Troy Terry, who was at 55 per cent last season, is on injured reserve with a hip injury until at least Nov. 21.

What is happening to Jackson LaCombe?

He is being asked to carry the blue line on his own, and it is not working. Jackson LaCombe is playing 26.4 minutes a night across all situations, sixth among NHL defencemen. At five-on-five Anaheim has 37 per cent of the expected goals with him on the ice. Of the 168 defencemen who have played at least two hours at five-on-five, only six have a lower share.

Last season LaCombe was at 53 per cent, and his on-ice chances for were 2.84 per 60. This season they are 2.03, and the chances against have risen from 2.50 to 3.52. That is the profile of a defenceman playing too many minutes against the best players with a partner who cannot help him.

His most common partner is Noah Warren, and that pair has 36 per cent of the expected goals over 88 minutes, with chances of 3.3 for and 5.8 against. Warren himself is at 36 per cent, tied for the third-lowest share among defencemen with two hours played. Tristan Luneau is the bright spot at 57 per cent, and the Luneau and Tyson Hinds pair is at 61 per cent over 69 minutes.

The injury list has made it worse. Pavel Mintyukov went on injured reserve on Oct. 23, Ian Moore is out until at least Nov. 8, and Travis Mitchell was recalled from San Diego to fill in. The pairs projected for Tuesday's game were LaCombe and Warren on top, Hinds and Luneau second, and Mitchell with Drew Helleson third.

Is anything working?

The power play. Anaheim has nine power-play goals and is scoring 9.56 per 60 minutes at five-on-four, seventh in the league, with chances that rank 13th. The penalty kill is close to league average in both goals and chances allowed. Sennecke has created more individual chances than any other Duck, 4.6 expected goals, and turned them into seven goals, and Luneau has quietly become the defenceman the numbers trust most. Those are the reasons the season is not already slipping away.

The case for patience, stated fairly

The argument for waiting is that this is a young team without two of its regular defencemen and one of its best wingers, and that it is still only a point or two outside a playoff spot. Mintyukov and Moore will be back within a couple of weeks, Terry by late November, and Carlsson and Gauthier are too good to stay this far below last season. The record has also been better than the chances, so Anaheim has banked points while it waits.

The other side is that the record being better than the chances is exactly the problem. A team at 44 per cent of the expected goals is a team that will lose more often than it wins over a season, and the blue line Anaheim will get back from injury is the same blue line that was thin before anyone got hurt. Mintyukov was at 44 per cent in his nine games.

Our view is that Joel Quenneville should start by cutting LaCombe's minutes towards 23 and giving Luneau and Hinds the toughest matchups they have earned. Beyond that, Pat Verbeek needs a defenceman who can move the puck. The summer's sale was meant to pay for Carlsson's contract without hurting the forwards. Twelve games in, it has hurt the forwards too.

What to watch

Buffalo visits on Thursday and Ottawa on Sunday. Watch LaCombe's minutes, and whether Quenneville splits him from Warren. The Ducks' shot share in those two home games will say more than the result. Every Ducks number is on the team stats page, and the Pacific race is on the standings.