Anaheim Ducks

They pitched a shutout at Dodger Stadium in the first outdoor NHL game played in a warm climate, they suffered their first regulation loss of the season on home ice on Jan. 21, well past the halfway point of the 2013-14 campaign and they are curb-stomping their opponents in the standings.

But for some reason, when people gather around the water cooler to talk about hockey, you rarely hear the Anaheim Ducks mentioned as the team to beat.

Everywhere but on the ice, where their foes give them plenty, the Ducks get no respect.

Despite 83 points and a cushion of seven over the next best, they can’t even make top spot in power rankings drawn up by reputable reporters like Dave Lozo and Mike Zeisberger.

So what is it about this Southern California squad that makes it so difficult for the casual puck fanatic, or even the occasional columnist, to stand up and take notice?

Quick, name three forwards without Getzlaf, Perry or Selanne stitched on their backs

Everyone knows how dominant the one-two punch of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry can be. Getzlaf has been a point-per-game playmaker in five of his eight seasons, thanks in part to having a wicked trigger-man on his right side in Perry. The two are practically attached at the hip, coming into the league together in 2005 and terrorizing goaltenders ever since. Perry is a six-time 20-goal scorer, and he hit 50 on his way to winning the Hart Trophy as the league’s most outstanding player in 2010-11.

They’re the only linemates in the top five in NHL scoring this season, and—much like the Sedin twins in Vancouver—whichever winger is lucky enough to line up beside them usually enjoys a statistical upswing. Chris Kunitz, Bobby Ryan and Dustin Penner can attest to that.

But looking beyond the big guns is a quietly efficient group of forwards capable of pitching in at any time.

In his first full NHL season, Nick Bonino is becoming a fantasy-worthy middle man. Andrew Cogliano is set to top his career best in goals and 23-year-old Swede Jakob Silfverberg appears poised for the future on Getzlaf’s flank.

Penner has been in and out of the lineup, but he's still having his best offensive season since falling out of favor with the Edmonton Oilers in 2010.

While some may make the argument that the Ducks are too dependent on one line for their offense, the depth is there in the same fashion the Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and Los Angeles Kings enjoyed on their recent Stanley Cup runs.

	GP	G	A	Pts.
Nick Bonino	54	16	24	40
Andrew Cogliano	54	17	13	30
Dustin Penner	42	12	15	27
Mathieu Perreault	45	9	17	26
Kyle Palmieri	47	9	12	21
Jakob Silfverberg	28	6	9	15

In their defense, these guys are pretty decent

With their biggest star on the blue line on injured reserve since before the season even began, the Ducks’ defensive group is considered the team’s weakest link. Sheldon Souray was signed for his big shot and tough-as-nails play on the back end.

Others, though, have been impressive in larger roles in his absence, and they don’t lack in the physicality department.

Every member of their current group measures in at more than 6'0" and close to 200 pounds. They throw that weight around as well as any group of rearguards in the league, too, wearing down opponents. That showed in their Stadium Series contest against the Kings last week when they threw 33 checks at the Kings, a night after pummeling them with 48. Mark Fistric—an Edmonton Oilers castoff—dished out 17 of those over the two games. Ben Lovejoy and Bryan Allen are fellow bruisers, and Francois Beauchemin is no stranger to fisticuffs.

	Height	Weight	GP	Hits
Ben Lovejoy	6' 2"	205	52	135
Mark Fistric	6' 2"	230	27	123
Bryan Allen	6' 5"	224	45	83
Francois Beauchemin	6' 1"	207	44	67

Cam Fowler was once a highly touted prospect who has never lived up to the highly set bar from a 40-point rookie season, but he quietly has regained that offensive prowess and is on pace for a career high this year while significantly improving his defensive play and impressing Team USA brass enough to make the Olympic team. Head coach Bruce Boudreau raved about the development of Fowler to ESPN recently.

His improvement has been so startling defensively. He's so much more a better player. Him and Ben Lovejoy have great chemistry and they really play well off each other. Cam's defense has picked up so much, where now that pairing plays against the top line from the other team all the time. They've done a good job of shutting down, plus Cam is probably going to end up with 45 points or so as a defenseman which would be great.

And I haven’t even mentioned rookie Hampus Lindholm, who is averaging nearly 20 minutes a night and owns the best plus/minus rating among all NHL freshmen.

With no certified star power, it’s easy to see how the group can remain so anonymous. But for how long?

Pick a goalie, any goalie

Pop quiz. Who was the starting netminder last year? If you said Jonas Hiller, you’re wrong. If you said Viktor Fasth, you’re still wrong.

Those two ’tenders split the time practically 50/50 during the lockout-shortened season, with both faring spectacularly well. This year, they have a third wheel in Frederik Andersen, a 24-year-old Dane who has come out of nowhere the same way Fasth did last season to earn a share of the Ducks net.

How is this a problem, you ask? It isn’t. The emergence of Fasth and Andersen has only pushed the incumbent Hiller to improve his consistency.

How late do I have to stay up to see this so-called best team play?

One reason the Ducks are still flying relatively under the radar is few people east of the Rocky Mountains bother to stay up late enough to watch them unless they’re playing in the Eastern Conference. Even the Stadium Series contest didn’t get going until 9:30 p.m. ET, and that was an event curious enough for a few extra folks to sacrifice an hour or two of sleep just to see what hockey looks like beside beach volleyball.

It’s worth it. You might as well get a good look at the team that could be beating yours in the Stanley Cup Final.

Anaheim Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf exited Saturday, Jan. 11's game against the Phoenix Coyotes at Jobing.com Arena in Glendale with a lower-body injury.

Eric Stephens of the Orange County Register reported the news and noted that Getzlaf would not return to the contest:

Updates from Tuesday, Jan. 14

Eric Stephens of the Orange County Register said Getzlaf expects to be ready to go tomorrow:

---End of Update---

Updates From Sunday, Jan. 12

The Ducks Twitter account has an update on Getzlaf's status moving forward: 

 ---End of update---

 

Los Angeles Times reporter Lance Pugmire reported some good news after the game:

Getzlaf scored his 23rd goal of the 2013-14 season in the second period of Saturday's contest, building on the momentum of his two-goal performance in the Ducks' most recent win over the Nashville Predators.

The fourth-year captain has oozed with confidence and is an excellent leader. He conveyed this mindset after that victory.

"We never had the doubt that we can't win a hockey game. We know we have to be a big part of it," Getzlaf told Pugmire.

Anaheim is atop the Western Conference standings and was on a five-game winning streak before its road trip to Phoenix. If the 28-year-old star is out for any significant period of time, it will be a huge blow to the Ducks offense.

Thanks largely to the efforts of Getzlaf and the 53 points he's logged this season, his club is among the league's elite offensively, ranking No. 3 in the NHL through 46 games with an average of 3.3 goals per game.

This year's Stanley Cup could very well be California-bound, but will it wind up in Anaheim? The second-place Ducks recently had a 10-game winning streak broken by the San Jose Sharks, who are fifth overall. And then there's the seventh-place Los Angeles Kings, who have allowed the fewest goals in the NHL. Is Anaheim the best of California's three dominant teams?

On the surface, the Ducks have a slight edge, but a deeper look at some of the high-level team analytics raises several concerns that prevent a definitive ruling in their favor. Most notably, their special teams and their possession game are inferior to both the Kings and the Sharks.

This latter weakness is the greater concern, given the transient nature of the shooting percentages Anaheim success relies upon, and how that edge over Los Angeles and San Jose does indeed disappear when you look back any more than a full season's worth of games. Come this May, the Ducks could find themselves at the bottom of this three-team pack just as easily as the top.

Has Anaheim Been the Best This Season?

While the most important numbers are strongly in Anaheim's favor so far this season, the remaining numbers raise several concerns that require a closer look. This includes all action up until but not including Friday night's games.

	Anaheim	Los Angeles	San Jose
Overall Winning Percentage	.750	.643	.707
Regulation-Time Winning Percentage	.679	.536	.610
Goal Percentage	56.4%	55.6%	56.4%
Close-Game Possession Percentage	51.2%	55.7%	55.7%
Power Play Percentage	14.9%	15.5%	18.8%
Penalty Killing Percentage	80.6%	83.7%	82.4%
Shooting Percentage	10.1%	8.0%	8.8%
Save Percentage	.914	.927	.916
Man-Games Lost to Injury	205	81	133
Cap Hit of Injuries	$6.29M	$3.46M	$4.58M

The Ducks do have the best winning percentage of the group, especially when we discount the random luck of post-regulation play. This is especially impressive given that they've been affected by injuries to a greater extent than the Kings and the Sharks. There will be no greater argument in Anaheim's favor than those winning percentages.

Several concerns are raised by the other numbers, however. The similarity in goal percentages between the three teams suggests that the Ducks aren't better but are merely luckier (or more clutch), and their weaker possession numbers raise the concern that their greater level of success isn't likely to persist.

Their higher shooting percentage also warrants a closer look, as do their lower power-play and penalty-killing percentages. Finally, and most notably, we are still looking at a sample of barely 40 games, and any conclusions should be confirmed with at least one more season's worth of data.

The Argument Against Anaheim

To argue that Anaheim isn't the best California-based team is basically to claim that its position in the standings isn't a true reflection of its actual talent and/or that it won't last.

The most important piece of evidence is that Anaheim's possession numbers, while still good, are nowhere near as strong as San Jose's and Los Angeles's.

Why is this such a concern? Because, as explained most recently by Kent Wilson of NHL Numbers, teams with good possession numbers tend to remain successful over the long term, while most other team statistics have a tendency to get pulled back toward the league average.

That leads us to the second concern, which is that Anaheim isn't outscoring its opponents by a greater degree than San Jose and by not much more than Los Angeles. Since the Ducks have the best winning percentage, how come they don't have a larger share of all of a game's scoring, especially compared to a team with a lesser record, like the Kings?

Either the Ducks are a clutch team that does a better job at scoring in critical situations, or they've just been luckier. While there's no way to tell which is the case for sure, we do know that if Anaheim truly has the persistent ability to raise the level of their game in key situations, then it's a skill that should have existed in the past. Let's see if that's true.

Who Has Been the Best Over the Past 90 Games?

Adding in last season's data gives us another 48 games to work with, or roughly 90 games in total. Before proceeding, we need to remain mindful of any major roster changes that could affect these new totals.

For example, this year Anaheim added Dustin Penner (from Los Angeles), rookie Hampus Lindholm and goalie Frederik Andersen but has been without Sheldon Souray and Bobby Ryan.

As for Los Angeles, Ben Scrivens and Martin Jones have changed its goaltending situation, Robyn Regehr and Willie Mitchell have changed the defensive end of its blue line and rookies like Tyler Toffoli have had some impact, too. Speaking of rookies, San Jose's most notable change has obviously been Tomas Hertl.

While these roster changes shouldn't be dismissed as trivial, we are not dealing with the all-new Dallas Stars here. Each of these teams still has the same basic core intact, meaning that it will likely do more good than it will harm to look back one additional 48-game season to either confirm or disprove some of our preliminary theories.

	Anaheim	Los Angeles	San Jose
Overall Winning Percentage	.717	.628	.646
Regulation-Time Winning Percentage	.644	.561	.556
Goal Percentage	55.3%	54.1%	54.1%
Close-Game Possession Percentage	49.6%	56.6%	53.9%
Power-Play Percentage	18.2%	17.9%	19.5%
Penalty-Killing Percentage	81.5%	83.2%	85.0%
Shooting Percentage	10.0%	8.6%	8.2%
Save Percentage	.915	.917	.919
Man-Games Lost to Injury	275	184	229
Cap Hit of Injuries	$7.95M	$7.36M	$7.21M

Based on this additional data, Anaheim does appear to have a better goal percentage than its rivals. Its advantage over Los Angeles has widened, and the Sharks are now down there with the Kings, too. There is now more of a consistency between Anaheim's ability to control the scoring and having the superior record.

This has helped clarify some of the secondary concerns as well. While such factors as injuries and save percentages have really evened out, there is still a gap in the special teams.

Anaheim's power play is not as good as San Jose's, and its penalty-killing is not as strong as Los Angeles'. Given each team's respective reputations, none of this is surprising.

If this is a concern, and a relatively minor one at that, it's only because it is reasonable to expect that Anaheim's special teams should be at, near or above the level of the other two teams if they truly are the superior club.

As for the shooting percentages, that gap also persists when we go back 90 games. Why would a high shooting percentage be a concern? Because it has been shown in the past that teams who rely on inexplicably high shooting percentages (or high save percentages) tend to go crashing down the standings eventually. Look no further than this year's Toronto Maple Leafs, for example.

There are two common reasons why a team could maintain a high shooting percentage. The first is if their local scorekeepers are undercounting shots, but if that were the case in Anaheim, it would affect its save percentages, too.

The more common reason is if the bulk of a team's shots are being taken by particularly skilled players, like in Pittsburgh for example. This could be the case in Anaheim, where 19.3 percent of its shots this year have been taken by either Corey Perry or Ryan Getzlaf.

Since their team shooting percentage has consistently been between 9.9 and 10.1 percent in three of the past four seasons, the concern that their shooting percentage will drop is therefore a minor one (at best).

The one remaining major concern is that the Ducks are clearly not a good puck-possession team and look even worse when including 2013's games. Such teams rarely remain successful over the long haul and virtually never make the Stanley Cup Final. Let's go back one more season before passing judgment.

Do the Patterns Hold Up Over a Three-Year Period?

Anaheim was coached by Randy Carlyle for the first 24 games of the 2011-12 season, while the Kings were coached by Terry Murray and John Stevens for their first 43 games. These are notable changes that could call some of this data into question.

That being said, the rosters themselves were still very similar in 2011-12. The most notable changes are that the Ducks had Lubomir Visnovsky and the Kings didn't add Jeff Carter until late in the year. Some of the depth lines may have changed, but the core players are still the same. With all of that in mind, we should be OK to include 2011-12 data.

One quick word of warning on this table. The 82-game schedule is almost equal to the number of games that have occurred since then. That means that half of this table will be based on two-year-old data, which could affect the results. But on the plus side, any patterns that actually hold up are most likely to be very real.

	Anaheim	Los Angeles	San Jose
Overall Winning Percentage	.608	.605	.617
Regulation-Time Winning Percentage	.555	.543	.535
Goal Percentage	51.4%	53.2%	53.1%
Close-Game Possession Percentage	48.9%	55.2%	53.1%
Power-Play Percentage	17.4%	17.4%	20.2%
Penalty-Killing Percentage	81.5%	85.2%	80.6%
Shooting Percentage	9.4%	8.1%	8.1%
Save Percentage	.912	.921	.917
Man-Games Lost to Injury	487	392	490
Cap Hit of Injuries	$13.12M	$12.94M	$13.40M

Wow, that really took a lot of wind out of Anaheim's sails. They now have the worst goal percentage, and though the Ducks are still ahead in regulation-time play, all three teams have basically the same winning percentage.

While our understanding of San Jose's power play and Los Angeles's penalty kill have both been confirmed, nothing has been done to allay our fears that the Ducks are a weak puck-possession team. They will likely continue to be successful for only as long as their shooting percentages remain superior.

Is Anaheim the Best?

While it's true that hockey is ultimately all about wins and losses, it's also about who is going to win today, not who won yesterday.

While there's no question that Anaheim has been the best team over the last 90 games, there is more than sufficient reason to doubt whether or not that will continue. Compared to their Californian rivals, the Ducks are weak possession-wise and rely on hot shooting percentages to win. That has rarely been a formula for continued success.

While this was only a high-level examination of the topic, using only a few basic analytics, there doesn't appear to be enough of a basis to crown the Ducks as California's best team. They could almost as easily finish this season as the worst.

All advanced statistics are via writer's own original research unless otherwise noted.

Rob Vollman is author of Rob Vollman's Hockey Abstract, co-author of the annual Hockey Prospectus guides and a featured ESPN Insider writer. @robvollmanNHL.

It’s ironic how in their first season after losing the “Mighty” from their team name, the Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history. Now, seven seasons later, they’re arguably even mightier.

The 2006-07 Ducks earned 110 points, while this edition of the team is on pace for 122, but that’s just half of the story. Through half of this season, more specifically, the Ducks lead the league with a 28-8-5 record (heading into action Monday night). They’ve done so on the strength of an unbeaten-at-home-in-regulation 14-0-2 record and a league-best 14-8-3 road record…all despite being second in man games lost with 196 (the Pittsburgh Penguins have 220).

Defying the Odds

Indeed, the Ducks lead the league despite having lost players like Teemu Selanne (in his final season), Saku Koivu, Jakob Silfverberg, Emerson Etem, Sheldon Souray and Francois Beauchemin for extended periods of time.

Digging deeper, there’s even less reason why the Ducks should be in the position they’re in currently. For example, the Ducks have been getting by on relatively pedestrian goaltending from starter Jonas Hiller (.913 save percentage through 26 starts).

Consequently, they’ve been forced to get it done largely on offense, with pretty much every move made by management and head coach Bruce Boudreau, who’s no stranger to high-octane offense, turning to gold.

For example, while the haul the Ducks got for perennial 30-goal scorer Bobby Ryan from the Ottawa Senators this past summer was impressive (Silfverberg, Stefan Noesen and a 2014 first-round pick), replacing him on the top line with perennial bust Dustin Penner wasn’t supposed to turn out like this.

Rejoining the Ducks after having left for the Edmonton Oilers following that championship season, Penner now has 24 points in 33 games. He scored just 37 total points over the last three seasons. Linemates Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry are meanwhile averaging over a point per game (on the “PPG” line, no less), leading the charge on offense.

Currently third in the league with 3.15 goals per game, trailing only the Chicago Blackhawks (3.67) and the St. Louis Blues (3.50), the Ducks own an above-average shooting percentage of 10 percent. Needless to say, these Ducks aren’t the ones currently lined up in row.

Digging Even Deeper

While that percentage should realistically regress toward a more average rate of nine percent, the Toronto Maple Leafs ended the 2012-13 season with one of 11.47 percent, the Tampa Bay Lightning ended 2012-13 with one of 10.42 percent and the Ducks themselves managed one of 10.07 percent to end 2010-11.

Since the 2004-05 lockout, the highest shooting percentage sustained over an entire season has been 12.33 percent by the Buffalo Sabres in 2006-07. So, it is entirely possible that the Ducks continue to get by as they have been.

In fact, summing shooting and save percentages, the Ducks own a PDO measurement, which estimates how lucky teams are, of 1.012. That’s the same as the Blackhawks, and most wouldn’t exactly consider Chicago, a team that hasn’t been nearly as dominant as during its Stanley Cup-winning season last year, “lucky.”

What the Advanced Stats Say

However, what separates Chicago from Anaheim, and other Stanley Cup contenders from the Ducks, are strong possession metrics, like Corsi, which tracks all shots and shots attempts on the net (including ones that get blocked).

Whereas the Blackhawks have a 55.8 percent Corsi For rating at even strength, the Ducks are 20th in the league with 49.6 percent.

Other elite teams like the Los Angeles Kings (55.9 percent), St. Louis Blues (54.0 percent), Boston Bruins (53.4 percent), San Jose Sharks (53.6) and Pittsburgh Penguins (50.9) all manage to get off more shot attempts than their opposition.

In regard to Fenwick For (like Corsi but without blocked shots), Anaheim places better at 13th in the league with 50.8 percent. However, Chicago (55.3), L.A. (54.7), San Jose (54.6), St. Louis (54.4) are the top four teams while Pittsburgh (52.9) and Boston (52.5) are comfortably in the top 10.

Some might say that advanced stats aren’t that reliable, but the championship Blackhawks were third in Fenwick last season (54.9). The Kings were fourth the season before (53.7). The Blackhawks were first in 2009-10 (57.8), just as the Detroit Red Wings were in 2007-08 (59.0).

The only notable exceptions here are the 2010-11 championship Bruins, who were 16th (50.1 percent) and the 2008-09 Penguins, who ended the season 19th (49.0). However, the Pens had a rating of 54.9 under Dan Bylsma that season after Michel Therrien was fired. That rating would have been third best in the league.

Comparing the 2014 Ducks to the 2007 Edition

Rather inconveniently, advanced possession stats only started being collected in 2007-08, just after the Ducks last won the Cup. So, fans may never really know how these Ducks compare in terms of possession numbers.

However, looking at traditional stats, the 2007 Pacific Division-championship Ducks definitely had the edge, and that’s putting it politely:

-Now sixth in actual shots on goal per game (31.8; seventh in 2007 with 31.5)

-Seventh in shots against per game (27.7; fifth in 2007 with 27.4)

-10th in goals against per game (2.42; seventh in 2007 with 2.42)

-26th on the power play (14.5 percent; third in 2007 with 22.4 percent)

-17th on the penalty kill (81.4 percent; fifth in 2007 with 85.1 percent)

-22nd on faceoffs (48.8 percent; sixth in 2007 with 51.8 percent)

All the stats arguably prove this Ducks team is a middle-of-the-pack one that’s been overachieving and will quite possibly endure a worse second half. Alternatively, maybe all the stats show is a team that’s been forced to play 60 percent of its games on the road with a far-from-healthy lineup night in and night out.

However you look at it, what can’t be taken away from them, though, is that they’ve still been winning. It’s incredibly impressive stuff…unparalleled resiliency, or heart if you’d like to put a word to it. They still lead the league. That cannot be denied.

As such, perhaps the one stat that may be the most relevant to Ducks fans is the following: Only eight of 27 teams who have won the Presidents' Trophy have gone on to win the Stanley Cup.

Assuming the Ducks continue to lead the league, though, all they need is one to prove what they already know to be true—that they are for real. The term lame duck describes players in a game who cannot possibly win. Obviously, that’s not these Ducks, as they stand more than a fighting chance. They’ve proven that much at least.

Are They Favorites?

The story’s only been half-written up to this point, and admittedly, few analysts know exactly what to make of Anaheim. To answer the initial question, it is too early to call the Ducks Cup favorites, as too much can go wrong in the second half. However, it’s also too early to call anyone else a favorite either.

With Selanne retiring and all, what they very well might be, however, are sentimental favorites. Everyone loves a happy ending.

There may not be a more fascinating player in the NHL today than Dustin Penner.

Superficially, he’s everything a team wants in a player. Listed at 6’4”, 247 pounds, he has the frame for a game obsessed (often to a fault) with size. In a league that values clutch play and championship experience, he has won two Stanley Cups, playing important minutes for his teams in both cases. He has scored 30 goals, routinely scores 20 and virtually every major league club he’s ever played for has performed better with him on the ice than with him off it.

And yet he’s spent much of that same career in the doghouse of his coaches. From Randy Carlyle in Anaheim to Craig MacTavish in Edmonton to Darryl Sutter in Los Angeles, Penner has found himself out of favour all too frequently. These aren’t bad coaches, either; two of them guided their teams to Cup wins, and the departure of the third (MacTavish) coincided exactly with the Oilers’ descent to the NHL basement.   

Penner’s always been something of an oddity for an NHL player, and his development route was so odd it doesn’t qualify as a path, let alone rising to the title of the road less traveled. He went undrafted, then lost his 18-year-old season to injury, spent his 19-year-old campaign with a two-year public college in Bottineau, N.D. and didn’t play at age 20. Typically, a player with that kind of pedigree is lucky if he can last in the ECHL, let alone have an NHL career of note.

Given that history, it is perhaps fitting that Penner’s NHL career has been unique and featured so many peaks and valleys. Last summer, when he took a one-year, $2.0 million contract with Anaheim, was a valley. By NHL standards—where a pretty comparable player in David Clarkson left money on the table to sign a seven-year, $36.75 million dollar contract—it was a pittance.

The early going this season has been a peak. With 24 points in 29 games and a plus-19 rating (the best number of any NHL forward) Penner hasn’t just recaptured past glory—he is scoring at the best pace of his career.

Superficially, it’s a nice story of redemption. Digging a little deeper, though, we find much more than that. We also find the answers to "what’s happening here?" (Spoiler alert: It’s not just the Corey Perry/Ryan Getzlaf effect, even if that is an obvious and popular interpretation) and "can it last?"

When we look at Penner’s point increases, we find that they’re almost entirely confined to the goals column. He had 12 assists in 33 games last season; this year, he has 14 helpers in 29 contests. It’s a difference so small we can hand-wave it away, so we will. Instead, we’ll focus on goal scoring.

The following chart shows Penner’s shots per hour, goals per hour, shooting percentage and shot distance in five-on-five situations over the last five seasons. It’s an interesting study:

Season	Team	Shots/60	Goals/60	SH%	Distance
2008-09	Oilers	5.85	0.79	13.5%	27.0
2009-10	Oilers	6.61	1.26	19.0%	25.8
2010-11	EDM/LA	6.35	0.88	13.8%	29.8
2011-12	Kings	7.69	0.44	5.7%	33.2
2012-13	Kings	8.95	0.31	3.4%	32.0
2013-14	Ducks	6.71	0.94	14.0%	28.2

Penner’s 6.71 shots per hour is reasonably consistent with his career to date; it’s a total marginally higher than his Edmonton days, significantly lower than his time with the Kings and one that falls easily within the range of what we would have expected had we looked at this chart in the summer.

That time with Los Angeles is the most suspicious part of the chart, because the increase in shots coincides with both an increase in average distance and a massive drop in shooting percentage. Some of this is likely randomness, but it also seems probable that coaching was a major factor. This is particularly likely given that Penner spent a lot of time outside the top lines while with the Kings; the emphasis there would have probably been to get pucks on net rather than generating quality chances.

What Penner is doing five-on-five in Anaheim is almost exactly what he did in Edmonton, both in terms of shot totals and shooting percentage. This is the player he can be when used correctly, and there is no reason to expect a significant drop-off.

What about the power play? Four of the categories are the same as before, but I’ve also added average ice time (Penner’s even-strength ice time didn’t fluctuate a lot with his different teams, so there was no need to look at that):

Season	Team	TOI	Shots/60	Goals/60	SH%	Distance
2008-09	Oilers	2.95	6.80	1.36	20.0%	16.7
2009-10	Oilers	3.03	8.65	2.10	24.2%	19.5
2010-11	EDM/LA	3.09	5.90	1.54	26.1%	18.5
2011-12	Kings	1.55	4.22	0.60	14.3%	27.1
2012-13	Kings	0.88	2.04	0.00	0.0%	23.0
2013-14	Ducks	2.27	9.67	3.87	40.0%	29.7

The evolution here is interesting. Penner played mostly net-front minutes in Edmonton (look at those shot distances) and unsurprisingly posted rather impressive shooting percentages (and goal totals) in his years there. Los Angeles used him differently for a bit and then opted not to use him at all, which unsurprisingly hammered his goal totals.  

As for this year, it’s reasonably self-evident that Penner’s current five-on-four scoring binge (four goals on 10 shots) is shooting-percentage driven, and thus it likely won’t last. It will be interesting to see what happens afterward, though; Penner was a useful power-play guy in a given role in Edmonton, and it seems likely the Ducks will keep using him on the power play.

We should make one point about Penner’s plus/minus, though. Plus/minus is driven by three things: shot differential, on-ice save percentage and on-ice shooting percentage. Penner has always been a good shot-differential player, a guy who drives possession of the puck; it’s been a constant through both the peaks and valleys of his NHL career, and his abilities in that category generally make him an underrated player.

Save percentage and shooting percentage, however, fluctuate a lot depending on a bunch of factors. They are often combined into a single statistic called PDO, which regresses to the mean (of 100.0 for most players, obviously) over time. Here’s what Penner’s PDO looks like over the last few seasons:

That’s going to fall, and when it does, Penner’s plus/minus will drop with it. He’ll still be a plus player, because not only does he have a nice rating right now, but he also drives shot differential. However, he won’t continue at his current rate. Those slightly high assist rates should dip back to career average, too, because part of that inflated PDO is a ridiculously high 15.2 on-ice shooting percentage, something well beyond what Penner (or, for that matter, Perry and Getzlaf) have averaged over previous seasons.

Put everything together, and Dustin Penner’s 2013-14 season really isn’t a story of redemption. It’s a story of a good player finally being put back in a position to succeed after years of misuse under his previous coach.

Sutter’s system has largely worked well for the Kings, but in this case, it’s hard not to wonder how much better the team would have been with a guy like Penner producing. Would it have made the difference in the playoffs last year, where the Kings were bounced in the Western Conference Finals after losing three games to Chicago by just one goal? It’s a question with no certain answer.

What is certain, though, is that Penner lost out on a pile of cash this summer thanks in no small part to Sutter. It’s also certain that the Ducks got a grossly undervalued player on a bargain contract, and that’s the kind of signing every team with Stanley Cup ambitions could use.  

Statistics used are courtesy of BehindtheNet.ca and NHL.com and are current through December 19.

The tap on the shoulder caught me off guard as I found myself in a foreign spot in a foreign land. It's not often you're asked to hitch a ride on the team bus, but because a coach took pity on a couple sportswriters—who were otherwise going to be stranded at a practice rink far from downtown Montreal—there I was with my eyes fixed on the road ahead, so as not to notice players' private conversations behind me.

The tap came again, followed by a shout: "Hey!" I turned to see that it was Teemu Selanne trying to get my attention, telling the person on the other end of his phone call to "hold on a moment."

Thoughts of what had I written negatively about Selanne lately raced through my mind. But no, I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.

Selanne gestured enthusiastically at a building the bus was passing and said, "Have you eaten there yet? You have to eat there. Best steak in town," he added with an all-knowing wink and smile.

And with that, Selanne was back on his cell.

Even the common man has a place in the world of one very uncommon hockey player.

Never mind his 20 seasons in the NHL, his Stanley Cup, 10 All-Star games, five Olympic appearances, Calder Trophy, the Rocket Richard Trophy, his three 50-goal seasons or four 100-point campaigns.

Forget all the numbers and accomplishments. Teemu Selanne is a one-of-a-kind human being who loves the game like no one before him, carries himself like a king in a sport full of princes and will be missed like few others once the upcoming 2013-14 NHL season concludes.

If we can believe the cleverly crafted video the Anaheim Ducks recently released, this will be the final year for the Finnish Flash—a last lap of NHL rinks during a season in which his Ducks are scheduled to make at least one visit to every outpost in Canada and the U.S.

Oh, what a whirlwind tour it should be.

Even though Selanne has played for four NHL teams—Winnipeg, San Jose, Colorado and Anaheim (twice)—he is universally loved and respected. And that's just from what fans see from the outside.

In person, Selanne is a better person than he is a hockey player, and that's saying something. This guy just never has a bad day. Selanne is the life of the party, always ready with a quick line, yet, he never comes across as abrasive or overbearing. He's funny, smart, clever, charming and, on the ice, as competitive as they come.

Certainly when Selanne burst on the scene by scoring 76 goals and 132 points during an 84-game rookie season in 1992-93, the league knew it has something special. With so much curiosity directed toward the sudden influx of Eastern European talent coming from the Slavic nations, Selanne proved those fair-haired Finns have a little game, too.

Traded from Winnipeg to Anaheim, Selanne evolved into a franchise icon with the new Southern California team and served as the perfect partner with dynamic speedster Paul Kariya, who was yearning for a running mate.

The Selanne-Kariya combo clicked like few others, but it didn't bring Anaheim a Stanley Cup. In fact, it didn't look like Selanne would ever reach the pinnacle of hockey, as injuries started to deter him by his early 30s. 

And then Selanne's fortunes changed, thanks in large part to the 2004-05 NHL season lost to a lockout. Selanne took advantage of the down time to undergo a much needed surgical procedure on his knee that might allow him to regain those speedy wheels of yesteryear. When the NHL cranked back up in 2005-06, Selanne returned to his beloved Anaheim with a modest one-year deal that basically said he had to prove himself again.

Forty goals and 90 points that season was a precursor to Selanne's 48 goals and 94 points the next season that ended with a hoisting of the Stanley Cup in 2007. Weeks short of his 37th birthday, Selanne flashed tears of joy in Anaheim's jubilant locker room, a celebration that extended well into the Orange County night.

The love affair between Selanne and the Ducks fanbase has never eased since. The father of four (his oldest son is already drawing interest from Canada's junior hockey), Selanne is 43 and starting to contemplate life after hockey.

He has a beautiful home behind the prestigious gates of Coto de Caza in Southern Orange County. He has a residence in Finland where most of his extensive auto collection is stored. Selanne has opened a steak house in nearby Laguna Beach and loves to play golf.

Once Selanne retires, he will not be without things to do.

If the NHL wants to do this right, it should organize a Mariano Rivera-like tour in which Selanne receives a gift on his last visit to each NHL city just as the Hall of Fame-bound Yankee has enjoyed during his farewell tour.

Selanne would be the recipient of a gift instead of being the one giving them out.

A good portion of a newly-retired man's life involves playing golf on beautiful sunny afternoons.

Fortunately for Anaheim Ducks fans, Teemu Selanne's golf game is nowhere close to where it needs to be for him to take his talents from the ice rink to the golf course.

In a hilarious video posted to the team's website on Friday, the "Finnish Flash" announced that he will be returning for his 21st and final NHL season.

Even though Selanne's skills have diminished a bit with age, his passion and competitive fire burns as brightly now as 20 years ago.

For his sake, and everyone who enjoys golf courses in Southern California, this kind of intensity would be best used on the ice, where he can take his anger out by crushing opposing players into the boards, instead of tossing his expensive set of clubs into the lake.

As for life after hockey, Selanne may want to drive up I-5 and become begin a career in Hollywood next summer. He certainly isn't lacking confidence.

Selanne, on his golf game in the return video: "I'm a great actor." Admitted it's his first time throwing a club in the water. #TeemuIsBack

— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) August 30, 2013

According to Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times, the 43-year-old winger played the role of writer, director and lead actor in his return video.

Ducks' PR guru Alex Gilchrist says Selanne wrote script for announcement video, then team sent crew to his golf course. Great stuff.

— Helene Elliott (@helenenothelen) August 30, 2013

What we do know is that Selanne has raised the bar on how athletes should make major announcements about their offseason plans. If you're going to make a decision that thousands of sports fans will be impacted by, do it in style.

Let's just hope that when his farewell tour arrives in Philadelphia, Selanne shows Claude Giroux how to swing a club without sustaining an injury.

Follow @NicholasGoss35

Nicholas Goss is an NHL columnist at Bleacher Report. He was a credentialed writer at the 2011 and 2013 Stanley Cup Final, the 2012 NHL playoffs and the 2013 NHL draft.

Dustin Penner is set to reunite with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry as a member of the Anaheim Ducks, per the team's official Twitter feed, giving fans flashbacks of the 2007 team that won the Stanley Cup. Will "putting the band back together," as Penner tweeted, also result in a career revival for the left wing?

Astute onlookers may recall that back in '07 this trio was referred to as the Kid Line, and Penner was the sandpaper of the unit—the gritty bassist that allowed Getzlaf and Perry to seamlessly trade off between lead guitar and rhythm, if you will.

Then suits shut the party down at 11: The Edmonton Oilers sent Penner an offer sheet, the Ducks didn't match it and the instance is still the only time a restricted free agent has been successfully poached by an opposing team within the confines of this round of CBAs. 

Prior to the move that ex-Ducks general manager Brian Burke characterized as "gutless," per The Associated Press (via ESPN.com), Penner was seen crushing skulls on a dominating top line alongside Perry and Getzlaf. While the duo that stayed in Anaheim have since taken their games to new heights, Penner has struggled mightily to find his way on the ice.

How Anaheim ended up being able to bring back this wayward son is simple: Penner has a lot to prove at this point. He didn't have the reputation as a lackadaisical player while he was a Duck. He was young and didn't really have any reputation at all.

Now it's an uphill battle for Penner, and not without reason or merit.

He was invisible for the Los Angeles Kings in 2011 during the regular season, then turned into Superman—along with the rest of the team—en route to winning the Stanley Cup.

L.A. gave him a one-year "prove that wasn't a fluke" contract, and Penner didn't prove to be much more than an expensive option for a healthy scratch. Turns out two goals in 33 games doesn't cut it when you don't lift the Cup at the end of the season, especially when the team's brass thinks you're lazy (h/t Edmonton Journal).

Penner and his training habits were such a lightning rod for criticism during his time in Edmonton and Los Angeles that it's listed as his profession on his Twitter page. While it's obviously a self-aware and sarcastic nod to media types grilling him and his love of pancakes, just because it's a joke doesn't mean it's not true.

Now Penner will look for his A-game—and effort—in Anaheim, something that hasn't been seen or heard from since 2009-10, when the bruising winger posted 63 points with the Oilers.

If anyone can return Penner to 20-goal form, it's Getzlaf, who has helped morph Perry into a Hart Trophy winner and constant goal-scoring threat.

Even if Penner only posts 20 or 25 points, this is a cheap gamble for Anaheim, which at worst will end up with a solid and affordable depth forward who is good along the boards.

Penner also serves as a backup plan in case Teemu Selanne retires. Anaheim's management is doing its yearly ritual of waiting for the Finnish Flash to decide whether or not he has another year of NHL hockey in his system.

In the meantime, they added Penner, who has shown an affinity for playing outstanding hockey for the organization. Will he be able to go into Anaheim and approach his rookie total of 45 points? Perhaps, and in putting up those kinds of numbers Penner would be doing both his career and pocketbook a favor.

At some juncture, he is going to have to put together a mildly consistent regular season to stay in the NHL. He'll be on the wrong side of 30 in no time, and no one besides Ilya Kovalchuk wants to leave the show at that point.

Penner has never been known as a conditioning freak, but the enticing (syrup-free) bait is there for him to take. Work hard off the ice, and you get to line up with Getzlaf and Perry on it. You end up with a long-term and lucrative deal to carry you to 35, and, more importantly, you get to prove all the doubters in L.A. and Edmonton wrong.

If that isn't enough motivation for Penner to revive his career, then nothing will be. 

Per Tim Panaccio of CSNPhilly.com, the Philadelphia Flyers were reportedly interested in dealing for Anaheim Ducks winger Bobby Ryan. But according to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun, the Ottawa Senators have beaten them to the punch:

ESPN’s Pierre Lebrun tweeted the details of the deal that includes winger Jakob Silfverberg, winger Stefan Noesen and a first-round pick:

And for further verification, Ryan himself tweeted a little message regarding his new home:

The 26-year-old is a tremendous replacement for Daniel Alfredsson, who left the Senators in free agency earlier on Friday, as reported by Helene St. James of USA Today. Ryan is fresh off a 30-point campaign in 46 games last season after tallying 57 and 71 points the previous two seasons, respectively.

Ryan is an exciting young replacement, and, carrying just a $5.1 million cap hit with two years left on his current contract, he’s also a very affordable option.

Anaheim got a handsome return for the star winger, though. Silfverberg and Noesen are high-upside players. In addition, Ottawa’s 2014 first-round draft pick could carry a lot of value if the Senators don’t improve upon their seventh-place performance of last season.

Silfverberg saw action in 48 games with the Senators last season, netting 10 goals in that span. The 22-year-old was arguably the biggest piece of the deal considering his potential to be a top-liner.

Despite a relatively pedestrian season in 2013, Ryan, the second pick in the 2005 draft, will add a great deal of firepower to Ottawa’s offense. The price was steep, but both teams seem to have come away with what they wanted in the deal.

Player: Keaton Thompson

Drafted By: Anaheim Ducks (87th overall)

Position: Defense

Final Central Scouting Ranking: No. 53 North American skater

Height/Weight: 6'0'', 187 lbs

DOB: September 14, 1995 (17 years old)

Most Recent Affiliation: U.S. National Development Team

Background

North Dakota native Keaton Thompson has spent the last two seasons with the U.S. National Development Team based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

In 2011-12, Thompson scored four goals and accumulated 13 points in 35 games. He followed that up with a three-goal, nine-point season across 26 games in 2012-13.

Full Scouting Report

The best asset in Keaton Thompson's game is his skating ability. He is a smooth-skating defenseman who displays good vision with and without the puck.

Scouts like Thompson's hockey sense as well.

Aaron Vickers of Future Considerations sees Thompson as a "smooth, two-way defenseman who plays a virtually mistake-free game. He’s a graceful, fluid skater who isn’t shy to jump in the rush. Seeing the ice well, he makes a good first pass and makes smart, composed play to relieve pressure.”

But other experts didn't see enough improvement from Thompson last year, and they were disappointed with his performance in the IIHF U18 World Championship.

Chris Peters of The United Skates of Hockey added that Thompson was, "Prone to some poor decision making with the puck. Thompson seemed to lack confidence while carrying it. At times he was overmatched against top lines defensively as well. The fact is, Thompson still has a lot of upside. The tools are there to be a very gifted defenseman, but he’s somewhat in a holding pattern."

Thompson is committed to the University of North Dakota, so he will have time to further develop his game before turning pro.

NHL Player Comparison

Nick Leddy of the Chicago Blackhawks. Both players are roughly the same height and weight, and like Leddy, Thompson will make solid plays to help his team even if he doesn't accumulate a lot of points over the course of the season. Look for a player like Thompson to excel at the outlet pass that helps his club transition from defense to offense.

NHL Timetable

Thompson is a smaller defenseman with good vision, but defensemen usually take a little longer to reach the NHL than forwards do, and Thompson should be no exception. Since he will be playing in the NCAA and he had a disappointing season last year, look for Thompson to wait until at least the 2015-16 season (if not 2016-17) before he becomes a full-time NHL player. 

Top-End Potential

Thompson has some offensive upside, but he figures to be a second-pair defenseman who plays a smart game in all three zones of the ice if he reaches his full potential. If he falls short, he would be a third-pair D-man who can give his team some minutes without making major mistakes in his own zone.