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The Washington Capitals and Anaheim Ducks are both coming off successful seasons in 2014-2015. They both improved their team immensely during the off-season. Could they be primed to face each other at the end of the 2015-2016 season in the Stanley Cup Finals?
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Last season, the Washington Capitals and Ducks faced each other twice. Those two meetings came within 10 days of each other. The Capitals beat the Ducks 3-2 in a shootout at home on February 6th. Philipp Grubauer was the surprising starter and he carried the Washington Capitals to a victory. On December 15th, Andre Burakovsky and Justin Peters led the way as the Washington Capitals beat the Ducks 5-3.
The Anaheim Ducks enter the 2015 season as the unquestioned favorites to win the Pacific Division. While it’s impossible to count out the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks have certainly improved, when you look at the Ducks roster, none of those teams come close to matching their depth.
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The Washington Capitals and Ducks will face each other twice this season. Anaheim will visit the Washington Capitals on January 22nd while the Caps will visit Anaheim on March 7th. I think that they will split the series, with the home team winning each game.
Washington Capitals Vs. Anaheim Ducks: Previewing The Ducks
Coming off a Western Conference Final appearance, most teams would have sat back and maybe make some minor improvements to the roster. The Ducks decided to be bold and take a different route. While the Ducks lost Kyle Palmieri, Matt Beleskey, and Francois Beauchemin, the Ducks replaced them with upgrades. They replaced Beauchemin with former Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa. They’re both aging, but Bieksa can add more to the team offensively than Beauchemin did.
The Ducks replaced Beleskey by trading underachieving wing Emerson Etem to the New York Rangers for Carl Hagelin. As a Washington Capitals fan, I can tell you right now that Ducks fans are going to love Hagelin. He’s one of the most underrated third line wings in the NHL. The rest of the Pacific Divison will grow to hate him just like Washington Capitals fans did.
They technically didn’t sign a replacement for Kyle Palmieri, but the Ducks have the forward depth to make up for the loss of him. Look for Jakob Silfverberg to have a breakout season. Mike Santorelli is a very nice bottom-six depth option. I can’t talk about the Ducks without talking about their elite duo of Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. Even though Getzlaf is bald and Perry is one of the easiest players in the NHL to hate, I can’t deny that they are darn good. Sami Vatanen is the best defenseman you’ve never heard of. You know how Boudreau had Mike Green with the Washington Capitals? Well, Vatanen is Boudreau’s Green with the Ducks. While Ryan Kesler has already started his decline, he’s at worst a very solid shutdown center who can occasionally score.
Their goaltender is Frederik Andersen. While he’s not an elite goalie, keep in mind that recent Stanley Cup trends suggest that you don’t need an elite goaltender in order to win. It’s more important to have a strong, deep team around your goaltender than it is for your goaltender to be elite. Andersen is the kind of goalie who won’t lose you games. That’s all that the Ducks really need.
Four Questions About The Washington Capitals And Anaheim Ducks
I had a chat with Eric Evelhoch, the editior of Anaheim Calling about the Ducks. Here’s what he had to say.
ME: The Ducks are coming off a successful season having improved themselves over the off-season. As a Washington Capitals fan, I can tell you that mentioning “Bruce Boudreau” and “favorites” in the same sentence is dangerous. With that said, are the Ducks the favorites to come out of the Western Conference?
ERIC: As a strict adherent to the Ric Flair Theory, “To be the man you’ve gotta beat the man”, while I think the Ducks are well positioned to be highly competitive in the Western Conference, the “favorites” designation belongs with the defending champion Blackhawks and to a lesser extent Los Angeles. Anaheim has yet to beat a team that finished with 100 points or more in the playoffs under Boudreau (he’s 0-4 against 100pt+ teams all-time), with the series wins coming against teams that would’ve been seeded 8 (DAL ’14), 7 (WPG ’15), and 8 (CGY ’15) were it still a 1-8 bracket. Anaheim certainly has the pieces, and had a few post shots gone differently last season they may have beaten Chicago, but considering Boudreau’s history they can’t truly be favorites until the breakthrough occurs.
ME: What do you see as the biggest concerns with the Ducks going into this season?
ERIC: While many in the national media have gone with the lazy story questioning Frederik Andersen, the defense in front of him is the actual one. How Kevin Bieksa fits in as a replacement for Francois Beauchemin, who despite his stats and analytics visibly showed his age later in the playoffs, will be important to pay attention to, as well as how Boudreau chooses to spread the minutes.
The addition of Simon Despres at the trade deadline really seemed to stabilize the second pair with Cam Fowler, now the question is whether they can keep that kind of play up over a full season and with potentially more of the load. Anaheim was a radically better team as far as shot attempt differential post-trade deadline (50.5 SAT% at 5-on5 before vs. 53.8 after and 51.7 in playoffs ), and if they can keep that up it will make the job much easier for Andersen, who for the first half of the season looked like a world class goalie and saw his play drop off after a freak injury at Tampa Bay in February.
The power play is another area of concern, having been mired in the bottom third of the league the last several seasons, and is a main reason why assistant Brad Lauer was let go in favor of former Jack Adams winner with Ottawa and one time Mike Babcock Mighty Ducks assistant Paul MacLean.
ME: Imagine you’ve been hired as the Ducks GM. You’re allowed to (without any salary cap constraints) get anyone on the Washington Capitals except for Alex Ovechkin. Who do you take, and why?
ERIC: First choice is John Carlson to give the Ducks the kind of big-statured defenseman that management loves but is also a highly capable puck mover and producer from the blue line, and is starting to come into his own. Matt Niskanen may be a better fit for the current team in ‘win now’ mode though, as he has a bit more of a physical edge to his game while still providing solid contributions both possession and production-wise. Tom Wilson is also intriguing for his physicality with upside while it’d interesting to see what Andre Burakovsky could do skating with Rickard Rakell.
ME: How awesome would a Washington Capitals vs. Anaheim Ducks Stanley Cup be?
ERIC: I’m not sure how much Anaheim would enjoy it, as the Caps have given the Ducks problems in recent years (1-2-2 since 11-12) and Ovechkin lights it up every time he plays at Honda Center. He has eight goals and six assists in five games in Anaheim, and nine goals with 10 assists overall, so seeing Ovie opposite the Ducks for the Stanley Cup is a nightmare waiting to happen for Anaheim fans. It’d be a very entertaining series though, with Washington having gotten bigger and the Ducks quicker over the years.
That sounds like a Mighty Ducks Four plot. Sign me up!
The Caps and Ducks are very similar teams. On paper, a Caps vs. Ducks Stanley Cup is likely. Check out our friends at Pucks Of A Feather for Ducks coverage!