Ducks-Blackhawks, Game 7, the morning after:

•Frederik Andersen’s save percentage in Games 5-7 was .845. There were some extenuating circumstances, but Corey Crawford was better in the end.

•I believe in a 24-hour vacuum between elimination and analysis of next season, but I would imagine the Ducks’ goaltending situation will be a live competition from the beginning of training camp.

•The Ducks were asking for trouble when they let this series get to seven games, especially after a 3-2 lead. In the final seven periods, Chicago scored 13 goals. So the biggest play in the series might have been in Game 4 overtime, when Rickard Rakell blocked Antoine Vermette’s shot, only to watch Vermette chase down that carom and score on Andersen from a severe angle. That gave the Blackhawks a game in which the Ducks scored three times in a 37-second span to lead 4-3.

•That preceded perhaps the second-biggest play, when Jakob Silfverberg drew a penalty and Patrick Kane tied it 4-4 to set up overtime.

•We go back to the one question everyone had when the season began and, really, the question that has lingered since Scott Niedermayer retired. Can the Ducks win without a world-class defenseman? As it turned out, they couldn’t, and the backline was a problem late in the series.

•Can they get a world-class defenseman? Not likely, with their internal salary cap. It means Cam Fowler or Hampus Lindholm must continue growing into that role. With Francois Beauchemin eligible to leave as a free agent, that growth is even more critical, although it’s assumed Beauchemin wants to stay.

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