The Anaheim Ducks are the NHL’s worst offensive team. Here are 6 reasons why

Twelve games in, the Anaheim Ducks are the worst offensive team in the NHL . It's not close either. They've scored just 25 goals, at least five fewer than any other team with the potential to grow by the end of Wednesday's action. An average of 2.08 goals per game is a sizable separation from the 31st-ranked New York Islanders , who sit at 2.31.

They had glorious chances to finally break through when they faced the Pittsburgh Penguins to close out a road trip and hosted Chicago in back-to-back contests. The Penguins were the worst defensive club in the league at the time and the Blackhawks are in a similar stage of attempting to re-establish respectability. Both still sit near the bottom of their divisions in the standings.

Instead, the Ducks were severely outplayed in Pittsburgh and needed a sterling goaltending performance from Lukáš Dostál — a regular occurrence — to scratch out a point. They scored one goal that night. A talk coach Greg Cronin had with leadership on the way home was followed by the Ducks firing a season-high 93 shot attempts against Chicago. Forty got to Blackhawks goalie Petr Mrazek . Two goals were scored that night.

With those possibilities for an explosion diffused, it's no surprise the Ducks could only manage an Olen Zellweger power-play strike Tuesday in a 5-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks . The Canucks aren't close to fully firing but last year's Pacific Division champions were certainly a higher class of opponent for Anaheim. A strong opening 10 minutes for the Ducks ultimately fizzled out over the final 50.

It was the eighth time in 12 games they've scored one or two goals. Shockingly, they haven't been shut out.

"It's frustrating as a team," Ducks forward Alex Killorn said. "It's tough in this league to win when you score that many. Usually, the magic number is three or four and holding them two. So, it's been tough. And I think individually for guys, it's been tough as well.

"It weighs on you. We all want to produce and help out the team, so it's been tough."

A lengthy, currently futile homestand continues Friday against the Minnesota Wild .

The thing is, nothing has changed for a franchise that's been stuck in offensive quicksand. Different players, different head coaches, different general managers over time. Here is the Ducks' offensive output and league ranking since they last made the playoffs in 2017-18:

The offensive ineptitude is now into a seventh year, with that 2021-22 season under Dallas Eakins the only time they weren't at or near the bottom. The first half of that season is also the only time the Ducks were a winning club for a sustained period, but that flirtation with surprising success was torpedoed by Bob Murray's sudden resignation and the sell-off of impending free agents Hampus Lindholm , Rickard Rakell and Josh Manson by his successor Pat Verbeek.

Verbeek dove into a rebuild that Murray was slow to embrace and the Ducks now have cap space, additional draft assets and an intriguing, almost enviable pool of young talent. But there are no more excuses for being this woeful offensively. You can't blame being barely above the two-goal threshold on a substandard roster, or the transition to a new head coach, or injuries leaving them unable to ice their best players all at once.

This is Cronin's second season, and the grace period in this rebuilding stretch is over. They're 4-6-2 and that's only because Dostál was nearly superhuman until his last two outings. Cronin has had all his top horses running from opening night. All but Troy Terry have had their stumbles, some right out of the gate.

"We're all fishing for quarters now," Cronin said Wednesday night. "I don't know. They got to keep shooting it. The more you shoot it, the more opportunities you get to score."

Sure, that's one solution. But it is more than that, with Cronin and his staff — which swapped in Richard Clune and Tim Army for Newell Brown and Craig Johnson — unable to help unlock those who have produced before or have the capability to. This Ducks roster should snap out of its team-wide slump at some point. But what if it doesn't? It's been proven that this is no one-month cold spell.

Here are some identifiable issues at the root of their scoring problems. If you feel there are other causes, feel free to discuss them in the comments below.

Lack of production and building pressure

Frank Vatrano and Trevor Zegras have one goal each, both into an empty net. Mason McTavish scored his first on Sunday in the final seconds against Chicago. Killorn has one non-empty-netter. Robby Fabbri has one goal (and no assists).

These are capable players with experience. The following career highs are in parentheses: Vatrano (37), Zegras (23), McTavish (19), Killorn (27), Fabbri (18). There isn't a 40-goal scorer here, but they are forwards who can finish plays. Cronin is perplexed. "There's guys that are whiffing on shots and flubbing shots," he said. "I don't know. This is getting to be like Groundhog Day."

"I hear it from them," he continued. "They're gripping their sticks. And if that's your biggest contribution to the team is goal scoring — like Frank, MacT's a scorer, Trevor has scored goals. Obviously Troy scores. When you don't do it, I'm sure it's stressful for them."

They don't consistently play as a five-man unit

Too often, it looks as if the Ducks aren't on the same page on their shifts. Players don't always anticipate or read where the play is going. Passes have connected better of late but clean zone entries and proper teammate support aren't to the point that they're driving play shift after shift. And while Terry leads Anaheim with five goals and 10 points, he and others have been guilty of turning pucks over when handling the puck too long.

"When I watch (Sidney) Crosby, they know where each other (is)," Terry said. "If one guy gets closed off, he knows where his outs are. It's that connected (feeling). I don't know, we're kind of not connected sometimes. When I have the puck and I know I'm in trouble, I don't necessarily know where the other two (forwards) are. It's just that kind of thing that we've done at times this year. That's when we've played well. The offensive zone in general, we're definitely not generating enough."

"The teams that I've played on that were connected as five were very predictable," Killorn said. "Predictable in the breakout where we knew where the puck was going to go once the (defenseman) touched it. Predictable in the O-zone when we knew when the first guy touched it and where it was going to go. And predictable in the neutral zone that we knew if there was time, there was a play to be made. But a lot of times, there's no time in the neutral zone so you just got to go behind their (defense). That predictability isn't quite there."

They don't shoot the puck enough

The Ducks have outshot their opponents only four times in their 12 contests. The shot disparity has been severely against several times (49-19, 36-14, 41-22, 45-23, 39-22). Racking up 40 shots against the Blackhawks helped boost their average to 27.2 per game but they're still tied for 25th while giving up a league-most 35.3.

After watching Vancouver put 39 shots on Dostál and score three of their five goals on deflections, Cronin lauded the Canucks' simplicity with which they generated offense.

"They just move off the puck and they skate off the puck and when they get in the offensive zone, they throw it to the blue line and they just shoot pucks with bodies going to the net," Cronin said. "That's what we're trying to get our group to do. They've got to learn from it. We've got to learn that it's a simple game. You don't have to stickhandle through people. Vancouver just demonstrated over 60 minutes."

They don't shoot the puck particularly well

Cutter Gauthier has defined their bad luck. The 20-year-old rookie has not scored his first NHL goal despite leading Anaheim in shot attempts (82) and shots on goal (31). But he has a team-leading 36 missed shots. He's also hit four posts and been stopped on breakaways and other golden chances.

It's inconceivable that Gauthier will continue shooting zero percent well into the future. But the Ducks are only shooting 7.7 percent compared to the 10.8 percent league average. Combine that with their low shot total and you have a team that isn't lighting up the scoreboard.

They've only scored 13 goals in five-on-five play and part of that is shooting only 5 percent at even strength. At some point, you'd imagine Gauthier will start to connect and the struggling Vatrano, Zegras and McTavish will move toward a 10 percent success rate or above.

Faceoff difficulties

The job of creating offense only gets harder if you don't start with the puck most of the time. While a faceoff win doesn't always guarantee immediate and sustained possession, the Ducks are the worst at capturing the draw. They've won only 42.8 percent as a team. Florida has the next lowest win rate at 45.2 percent.

Fourth-line center Isac Lundestrom (50.4 percent) is their best on faceoffs. Leo Carlsson (29.7 percent) has struggled so wingers like Fabbri (47.0 percent) often step in. McTavish's win rate (47.6 percent) is down from last season, while Ryan Strome (44.1 percent) has never been an ace on the dot. It is also more than a center's job to win possession of the puck.

Because of their inability to consistently win draws, Cronin said territorial advantage "has been flipped in eight seconds" when they're chasing the puck and seeing the opposing team send players over the boards with fresh legs against their tired group if they can't get the puck out of their end. "And that's happened way too much," he said. "Way too much this year."

Lack of clear identity

Are the Ducks a rush-chance team? Are they about cycling the puck in the offensive end? Do they create offense off a strong forecheck? Do they want to emulate others who will change positions and cross up defenders (perhaps including some well-disguised picks)?

That's on Cronin and devising a system his players will believe in and execute properly and regularly. But it's also about whether Verbeek has put together the roster that can effectively play their desired system. This isn't a talent-free Ducks club and they've gotten better at defending in their end while getting excellent goaltending.

But their popgun offense is failing them. Even though it came against the lowly Blackhawks, the Ducks' dominance in puck possession and chance creation serves as an ideal to reach. And they've got to start burying more of those chances.

"I thought that first period was the best period I've seen us as a team play in the last couple of years for sure, in terms of what we were trying to do — executing the game plan and then actually going out there and doing it," Zegras said. "It's what we're trying to do. We all know it and we saw it. We looked at the stats and everything.

"It's hard. It's f—ing hard to play that way, but we got to keep doing it."

(Photo of Mason McTavish: Sean M. Haffey / )