Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Pessimism about the Ducks' forwards

(Author’s note: as this post deals with NHL development, all statistics cited are a combination of regular season and playoff statistics, all at the NHL level.)

At this point in time, 7 forwards are capable of making our top 2 projected lines. 6 of them, however, have a year or less of NHL success to really hang your hat on (and some you really have to stretch your definition of 'success' or possibly, wear a very small hat):Last year's numbers are promising, but before that? Yikes!

And how 'bout Teemu, Burke’s only UFA signing at the NHL level? Well, let’s just say that his Masterson year came out of the blue. The graph below shows how his G/Gm and Pts/Gm projected before his ketchup exploded.Bottom line: Teemu was the only current Duck forward to hit (exactly) 35 points in 2003-04, including the playoffs. We are either going to be the model for cheap (unproven) offense in the new-era NHL or the answer to the question, “What’s the worst thing you can do with two Norris Trophies on your blueline and a Conn Smythe in net?”

This is really just a set-up post. Later I will give you some reasons to be optimistic about our ragtag assortment of possible scorers, and this time it will have nothing to do with Disney!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey guys,

I'm a Nucks fan from Victoria, but I came across your site a month ago and I've been reading it regularly ever since. I think the style's pretty entertaining, and the 3-team rivalry format of the blog is great. So, no real point here except to say "nice job"!

cheers,
Mike

Mike Chen said...

I've just figured it out! Let's form a mega-California team with the Sharks forwards and the Ducks defense. We can randomly pick two goalies out of Nabokov, Bryzgalov, Toskala, and Giguere.

It will be the best team ever! As for the Kings, well, they'd really be screwed playing that team all the time.

Anonymous said...

No one would admit it outloud, but i heard people at oilfans.com and calgarypuck.com suggest that an all Alberta team composed of Edmonton's offence and Calgary's D and goaltending would be an incredible machine last season.


You're not gonna get anyone to admit to saying or even thinking that now though.