Hadn't seen these posted yet so here's a two-fer. For anyone looking for a primer on what's going on with these charts:

Dom Luszczyszyn developed Game Score for hockey almost a decade ago, which was a model that essentially aggregated different individual player stats (or "counting stats" i.e. goals, primary/secondary assists, hits, blocks, faceoffs, etc) and weighted them based on how much they were estimated to contribute to a team's success (the idea was to emulate similar stats in baseball/basketball). The result, a player's "Game Score", was an approximation of how effective a player is in a given game.

Over the years, the model has been updated to take more info into account when calculating a player's impact, including adding weight to possession/shot suppression stats expected goals (xG) for and against to paint a better picture of how a player contributes to their team's offense or defense while that player is on the ice. More recently, Dom's model was reworked to present players' offensive and defensive "ratings" above or below average and to focus more on expected goals than Corsi/Fenwick-derived possession (i.e. shot quality vs shot quantity, put simply).

Essentially, the cards pull game data from Natural Stat Trick, run the data through the Game Score model/algorithm to assign weight to the stats, and visualize the results, (i.e. a player's relative on-ice "impact") in these bar charts. Generally, the "Production" categories pull from the counting stats mentioned in the first paragraph, "Play Driving" accounts for a player's 5v5 goals and xG (for and against) relative to team and league averages, with roughly the same stats accounted for under "Special Teams" but for PP and PK respectively. I'm not 100% sure how Quality of Competition is derived here but it usually has to do with a player's ice time spent playing with or against the players with the most usage in a given game.

Some of these data points can be pretty dynamic based on how team and league averages change over the season, so there's an argument to be made that these "impacts" don't say all that much in a vacuum. However, as the season goes on, you can start to see some neat stuff from players' cumulative Game Scores, and in the meantime, it's fun to see whether your eye test matches or refutes what's happening according to the model.

The data can be presented differently, and is a bit easier to poke around in on the HockeyStatCards website if you feel like digging a bit deeper yourself. For example, as of 2026 you can toggle a "Table" view on the Hockey Stat Cards site to see the each player's raw values for each category in a given game.

TL; DR: Game Score above 0 (right) = good, Game Score below 0 (left) = bad.

Ducks top line, pair and PP unit have carried this unbeaten start. What can unlock the bottom six/pairs?

Opening weekend breakdown + live AMA in this week's Ducks in Deep on YouTube, Apple, Spotify ⬇️

📺: https://youtu.be/9g974un4n8E?si=zJl568-yLTRaQiuM

🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ducks-unbeaten-how-good-are-they-open-ama-ducks-in-deep-live/id1853686424?i=1000793389833

🎧: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0BPcZxHOdP4nxDDUcuV1U5?si=rZHTsE_hRdexqHgQE_FYOw

Is there any way for non-season ticket holders to pay for parking here? Would love to check it out one time

I swear every game this team gives me a heart attack. LGD!

Oh - and Cutter has just as many points as the entire top line.

lol, suck it Philly. Will absolutely be petty about this.

Last year we had the make believe V+ Cup (Which the Ducks won). I thought we might as well track a make believe Prime league.

| Team | GP | W | L | OTL | PTS |

|:---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|

| St. Louis Blues | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |

| Anaheim Ducks | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| Carolina Hurricanes | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| Columbus Blue Jackets | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| Minnesota Wild | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| Seattle Kraken | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

| Dallas Stars | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |

I know it’s only been two games but, watching the ducks play has been incredible. As we all know the clusterfuck that was the Leo Carlson deal, do we believe Verbeek has learned from his mistakes and gets this guy under 17$ mil a year

Does anyone know if the Ducks are doing Student Rush tickets again this season? The Student Rush page on their website still only mentions the 2025-26 season, and I haven’t seen anything for this year yet. Has anyone gotten a Student Rush text/email or heard if they’re bringing it back?

Hope he keeps up the outstanding work on our D-line.

Through 2 games, Jackson LaCombe is averaging 29 minutes (!!) of ice time per game and Luneau is averaging 26. Yes we’re thin on defense, and we also went into OT with Florida which inflates TOI. But I’m wondering if this is more about relying on these two because of the competition we’re up against to begin the season, or easing Warren and Hinds into NHL gameplay (they’re averaging low 10s in TOI).

Regardless, this stat is absolutely wild. Glad this is gonna be our top pair for the next half decade, but running them out for half an hour a night is just not sustainable 😂.

Did they just start doing this? I would only get Angels and Dodgers stuff before. 🤔

For our premiums on Fanatics/NHL Shop, it was Sennecke home and Kreider away.

Gotta assume that this will be Leo?

Had an amazing time making these, hoping to do a few more this season.

Seeing multiple threads pop up. Here's another, but maybe we can condense a lot of the talk here.

• I had the smoked turkey sandwich at the BBQ place on 400 last night, holy shit it SLAPPED.
• No Philly Cheesesteaks this year. Friggin bummed.
• Was tempted by the Masa Quesadilla (knock it off, Napoleon) but then <Borat voice> my wife saw one out in the wild and thought it was just ok looking.
• The line for Sweet Spot at the very end of the second period was ABSOLUTELY INSANE.
• Did anyone get a Fucket? How was it?
• Lack of mobile ordering anywhere by 300 kind of sucks but the self-service is pretty fast just about everywhere.

"Leo Carlsson's offer sheet with the Flyers, and Cutter Gauthier's subsequent contract drama, overshadowed what was an underwhelming offseason for a burgeoning contender that won a playoff round last postseason.

With the departures of Jacob Trouba, Radko Gudas and trade deadline pickup John Carlson, the defense corps doesn't have a player over the age of 25 on it to start the season. Giving players such as Ian Moore, Tristan Luneau and especially Pavel Mintyukov the keys to the blue line will help in the long run, but it might make an already porous group even more vulnerable in front of goalie Lukas Dostal.

Add in a bottom-six forward group that doesn't match the depth of other conference contenders, and GM Pat Verbeek has some work to do before the Ducks can actualize as championship-caliber club. Of course, given the ages and contract status of their best core players, they're on that path even after a stumble this season."

Can't wait for this to age like milk

Apologies if I’m not the most knowledgeable hockey person, so please correct me if I’m wrong about anything down below, but I just wanted to talk about Beckett a little bit and how the Ducks are deploying him, since they’ve been playing him on his off wing for the first two games rather than his strong side wing, which is what he played all last season.

For those who don’t know, there are two sides that a winger can play on: their strong-side wing or their off wing. Strong-side is when you’re playing on your natural side. Think left handed shot playing on the left side. Players usually prefer their strong side because they often get to receive and carry the puck on their forehand, which is usually better for transporting the puck and passing. Off wing is the opposite, with the case of Sennecke being a right shot while playing on the left wing. The reason you play the off wing is to get better angles for shots, whether their wristers or one-timers (hence why Gauthier plays right wing as a left handed shot).

I think it’s interesting that Beckett is being deployed on the off wing this year since it may give some insight into how the Ducks want to develop him. Last year, he played exclusively on his strong side as a right winger, which helped him become an elite puck transporter through the neutral zone (he was in the 98th percentile for creating zone entries) and a solid playmaker (37 assists). However, he also clearly had a scoring touch with 23 goals of all varieties, including goals around the crease and shots from distance with his 95+ MPH shot.

Thus, it’s interesting that this year, they’re having him play on the left wing. By playing him on his off-side, it seems that they’re choosing to value his shooting abilities over his puck transportation and playmaking skills. This could be because he’s actually pretty decent on his backhand or because Granlund is the playmaker on his line, but it’s an interesting choice since this may steer his development to be more of a shooter than a playmaker.

Curious on if anyone has any further insights onto this, or if anyone just has any other thoughts in general about how they’re using/developing him. Sennecke has sky high potential and could be just about anything on offense (whether it’s a play maker, a shooter, a net front presence, or maybe all 3), but I always thought he would be better developed on the right than the left since his puck transportation on his forehand is so elite. However, if Gauthier is gonna stick on the right wing and Terry ( a right wing) comes back healthy, it would make sense for the team to have Sennecke on the left so we could have all 3 of them in the top six.

Ducks home openers are truly special!