Whicker: Worst Ducks team in history waits for elevator to restart

The National Hockey League plays in an elevator. Thanks to an unforgiving salary cap, you’re either ascending or descending.

Washington has made the playoffs six consecutive years. No one else’s streak is longer than four. Pittsburgh would have done it 14 consecutive years but lost the “qualifying round” in the 2020 bubble.

For a long time the Ducks were able to withstand the downforces. Beginning in 2006, they qualified 11 times in 13 seasons. In 2017, they lost the Western Conference Finals to Nashville, a six-game collision that bruised every crucial body part, the heart included.

But as they limped home, they still had much to anticipate.

Ryan Getzlaf was a point-a-game dynamo in those playoffs. Richard Rakell, 23, scored 33 goals that season. Goalie John Gibson and defensemen Josh Manson, Hampus Lindholm, Cam Fowler and Brandon Montour were all 25 or younger.

Four years later, in the merciful emptiness of Honda Center, the Ducks have produced the worst hockey in their 28-year history.

They have won three home games in regulation. Their current power-play percentage of 9.24 would be the worst in league history, wiping the ‘98 Lightning (9.38) off the books. In starker terms, Anaheim has scored 11 goals on its power plays and given up five.

Don’t talk about how the window closed. The Ducks are in a windowless basement, with no assurance that the worst is over.

Only Max Comtois (14) and Adam Henrique (11) have reached double figures in goals for the lowest-scoring team in the league. Rakell has eight. Injuries to Lindholm (18 games) and Manson (21) deepened their plight.

This is the eighth and final year of Getzlaf’s contract, although he is expected to return for much shorter money and term. But the Ducks will be paying Fowler $6.5 million for each of the next five seasons, Henrique $5.825 million for each of the next three and Jakob Silfverberg $5.25 million for the next three.

How did the downward glide become a death spiral?

It is not because the Ducks cannot find talent. They kept the boat afloat without a top-five first-round draft pick after 2005, when they selected Bobby Ryan second overall. The Vegas Golden Knights can testify.

Because the Ducks had signed defenseman Kevin Bieksa and given him a no-movement clause, they had to trade Shea Theodore, their first-round pick in 2013, to the expansionist Knights in order to keep them from picking Manson or Sami Vatanen. In doing so, the Ducks protected Brandon Montour. Now Theodore will get Norris Trophy votes in Vegas after two stellar seasons, and Montour is in Florida, via Buffalo.

In 2015, the Ducks felt they were one defenseman away from a strong Stanley Cup bid. They got James Wisniewski from Columbus and gave up William Karlsson, whom they had drafted with Rakell and Gibson in 2011. Wisniewski came and went, and Vegas took Karlsson in the expansion draft. He was the best player in the Knights’ unprecedented ride to the Finals in their maiden season.

Kyle Palmieri is another who got away. The Ducks sent him to New Jersey for two future picks they wound up trading away. Palmieri scored 132 goals for the Devils the next five seasons. This season, the Ducks have scored 117.

Bob Murray, promoted in November of 2008, has held his general manager’s job longer than all but two NHL counterparts GMs (David Poile of Nashville, Doug Wilson of San Jose). He felt it imperative to give Getzlaf several shots at his first Stanley Cup since 2007, which is why he didn’t follow the usual race to the bottom.

Now Jamie Drysdale and Trevor Zegras, the past two first-round picks, are already popular among the famished fan base. And while 16 others chase the Cup, the Ducks’ red-letter day is June 2. That’s the draft lottery, which has frowned upon the Ducks.

Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, Sidney Crosby, Marc-Andre Fleury, Victor Hedman, Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares, Nathan MacKinnon and Andrei Svechnikov were all picked first or second in their drafts, and today they’re the top players on the top contenders. Anaheim’s only No. 2 pick was Ryan, in the Crosby draft of 2005.

The Ducks ached their way out of Nashville four years ago, but at least there was ibuprofen and anesthesia and rehab in their future. They would have preferred it to the numbness of 2021, which will only disappear with time.

That’s what they don’t tell you about the NHL elevator. It’s only guaranteed to reach the bottom.