New York Rangers rivals: Anaheim Ducks season preview

Arrivals

The arrival with the potential to have the greatest impact is new coach Dallas Eakins.  Eakins is a former Ranger who played three games for New York in the 1996-97 season.  He spent the last four seasons coaching the San Diego Gulls in the AHL, the Ducks farm team.

Eakins prior NHL coaching experience was with the Edmonton Oilers.  He was fired in December 2015  after a year and a half and 36-63 record. Before that he was one of the hottest coaching prospects in hockey after a successful run as coach of the Toronto Marlies.

The Ducks added only three players to the roster in the off-season.  They signed UFA defenseman Chris Wideman who had stints with three teams last year.

The Ducks are the sixth team for ex-Ranger Michael Del Zotto, another UFA signee.  After five seasons in New York, Del Zotto has played for the Flyers, Canucks, Predators, Blues and has had two stints in Anaheim.  He was a late season acquisition for the Stanley Cup champion Blues but saw no action in the playoffs.

To bolster their forward lines the Ducks traded a draft pick to Montreal for forward Nicolas Deslauriers.  He only scored two goals in 48 games so  he is probably not an answer to the Ducks’ offensive woes.

The Ducks are hoping that defenseman Brandon Guhle will step up after being acquired from Buffalo in the Brandon Montour trade.  They are also looking to the forward trio of Maxime Comtois, Sam Steel and Troy Terry to contribute offensively after showing some promise.

Departures

The biggest name to leave the Ducks is longtime forward Corey Perry  whose contract was bought out.   After nine years as a top goal scorer, he slipped to 19 and 17 goals before scoring only six goals last season in an injury ridden campaign. The buyout means that the Ducks will be on the hook for over $13 million for the next four years. He subsequently signed with the Dallas Stars.

The Ducks didn’t qualify defenseman Jake Dotchin who signed with the Blues.   A trio of UFA’s left the team.  Center Ben Street signed with the Devils, defenseman Jaycob Megna signed with Vegas and defenseman Andy Welinski  joined the Flyers.

All four split last season between the Ducks and the AHL so their departures won’t have much of an impact.

Top questions facing the Blues

Will the offense come back?  After boasting the weakest offense in the NHL and making virtually no changes in the off-season, is there reason to believe that they will be better?  To be better, they need huge rebound seasons from Rickard Rakell (18 goals) and Ryan Getzlaf (14 goals) as well as continued production from youngsters Daniel Sprong (14 goals in 47 games) and Ondrej Kase (11 goals in 30 games).  Jakob Silfverberg was the only player with over 20 goals and Getzlaf led the team with 48 points.  That has to improve.

Can John Gibson save the Ducks?  John Gibson is one of the most underrated goaltenders in the NHL.  He has a career .921 save percentage and 2.42 goals against average.  With capable back up Ryan Miller, goaltending is one of the Ducks’ strengths and they will be leaning on Gibson to bail them out.  He’s good enough to do, but will the pressure from the lack of offense be too much?

What happened to the Ducks’ vaunted defense?  Just a few years ago, the common belief was that the Ducks had the best core of young defensemen in the NHL.  The group included Cam Fowler, Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson, Brandon Montour, Marcus Pettersson, Shea Theodore and Sami Vatanen.

Now, only Fowler, Lindholm and Manson are left  along with sophomore Jacob Larsson and the team will be relying on rookies Brandon Guhle, Josh Mahura along with journeymen Del Zotto and Wideman to bolster the blue line.

When you can see them

If you want to see the Rangers play the Ducks, don’t blink or you will miss them.   In another scheduling peculiarity, they play both of their two games in December in a space of nine days.  The Rangers close out a four game west coast road trip in Anaheim on Saturday, December 14 in a game with a 4pm EST puck drop.  Nine days later the Ducks come to Madison Square Garden for a 1230pm matinee on Sunday, December 22.