Anaheim Ducks: John Gibson can lead the team to the Stanley Cup

Weaknesses

Penalty Kill

On paper, the Ducks killed 83.2 percent of their penalties last season, which was the fifth-best rate in the league. That’s pretty darn good. So why isn’t it a strength? Because the Ducks weren’t nearly as good at killing penalties as they appeared to be.

Their shots against rates suggest their goaltender was by a wide margin their best penalty killer. Sure, you can attribute that partly to the loss of Ryan Kesler, who is still a very good penalty killer. But guess what? Anaheim won’t have him to start the season and nobody really knows when he’ll be back. The Ducks better hope Gibson can repeat his 2017-18 season or things could get very ugly.

Offense

Last season, the Anaheim Ducks scored 235 goals, ranking 18th in the NHL. Take away their four shootout wins and it falls to 231 goals, which would have been 19th. The Ducks did very little this summer to address this issue. Gibbons had an outstanding first half for the Devils (23 points in 45 games), but fell off in the second half (just three points in 14 games). So he’s a bit of a question mark, to say the least.

Getzlaf staying healthy would be a huge help. So would bounce-back seasons from Corey Perry and Jakub Silfverberg. If Adam Henrique can replicate his success in Anaheim last season, that would be a huge help too. The emergence of Ondrej Kase and the return of Patrick Eaves should both help. But even then, the Ducks are going to rely on their defense.

Third Pairing

The Anaheim Ducks likely don’t need their third pairing to be that great, given how good their top two pairings should be. However, it’s still a bit of a concern. Pettersson did not do well in a small sample size last season. Sustr and Schenn aren’t going to play anyone away. So the Ducks better hope none of their top four defensemen get injured. Because if one of them does, there will be some major issues.