The 1999–2000 Mighty Ducks of Anaheim season was the team's seventh season. The Ducks failed to qualify for the playoffs despite recording 83 Points again.
Off-season
The Ducks made a few changes during the summer, with the focus on improving their scoring depth much like last season.
Ted Donato was acquired from the Ottawa Senators with Antti-Jussi Niemi in exchange for goalie Patrick Lalime on June 18, 1999.
The Mighty Ducks acquired Oleg Tverdovsky from the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for Travis Green on June 26, 1999, in order to give the team more scoring from the blue line since Fredrik Olausson was the only point producing defence man last season. Defense man Mike Crowley would not make the roster with the Ducks although scoring 4 goals and 9 points in 28 games over the last two seasons, being sent to the Long Beach Ice Dogs of the IHL.
Rookies Mike Leclerc and Niclas Havelid earned roster spots. Vitaly Vishnevskiy would be their first choice to get a call up from Cincinnati in case of needing a defense man.
On September 27, five days before the season started the Ducks acquired prospect Ladislav Kohn from the Atlanta Thrashers in exchange for 2000 8th round Draft pick.
Regular season
The season went down very much like the last one. The Mighty Ducks lost their first two games getting shut out both times but won their next two scoring eight goals. Anaheim made an early deal with the Islanders sending Ted Drury to Long Island in exchange for Tony Hrkac, who had won the Stanley Cup with Dallas the previous season. They played very consistently until December 26, 1999, going 18–13–4–1, winning four games in a row in mid-December. What seemed like the winning streak they needed quickly turned on its head becoming their longest winless streak – going 0–6–1 and dropping below the .500 mark for the first time. Anaheim stayed below that mark until January 26, 2000 when rumors surfaced about trading Selanne to give the Ducks more depth in order to make the playoffs, which looked questionable at that point.
The Ducks did boost their lineup by acquiring Kip Miller from Pittsburgh on January 29. Ironically, the Ducks had a five-game unbeaten streak which began in Pittsburgh and going 7–3–4 since Kip Miller's acquisition by February 29. In early March Anaheim struggled to keep up with Edmonton and San Jose, going 1–3–2-1 and winless the last four games during that stretch until March 15. The Ducks then again made a playoff push, winning the next three games, but going 3–4–0–1 after that streak in their last eight games, thus missing the postseason by four points. Since the Mighty Ducks never were out of the playoff picture fans and experts criticized General Manager Pierre Gauthier's decision not to obtain a player with some scoring touch (Sergei Krivokrasov and Brendan Morrison were dealt at the trading deadline). Late acquisitions Ed Ward and Jorgen Jonsson had no impact, each scoring only one goal though Ward brought some physical play with him, which was needed after the Ducks waived Jim McKenzie in mid-January.
Anaheim's biggest problem was their penalty killing: the Mighty Ducks struggled often short-handed during the regular season, as they had the lowest penalty-kill percentage in the NHL at 79.05%.[1] The defense ranked seventh in the West, but the team's poor penalty kill resulted in 21 more goals allowed than the previous season, which cost them the playoffs. Offensively, their defensemen scored 43 goals compared to 25 goals in 1998–99, led by Olausson and Tverdovsky for a combined 30 goals. Both goalies had another very solid season though their save percentage was down compared to the previous year. Hebert recorded the second-best GAA of his career; this was also Hebert's fifth straight season with three or more shutouts. Their offense relied on their first line, again combining for 94 goals (109 goals last season) but saw more secondary scoring from other players as Cullen, Aalto and Nielsen improved their goal and point totals while Mike Leclerc had a solid rookie season with 19 points. Marty McInnis missed twenty games, which was a factor. The Ducks' power play was good but nowhere near the dominance of last season, ranking 14th with a percentage of 16.57%.[2]
Note: CR = Conference rank; GP = Games played; W = Wins; L = Losses; T = Ties; OTL = Overtime loss; GF = Goals for; GA = Goals against; PIM = Penalties in minutes; Pts = Points Bolded teams qualified for the playoffs.
^"Ducks Shut Down Blackhawks". www.cbsnews.com. December 18, 1999. Retrieved June 10, 2023. The shutout was Hebert's third of the season and 25th of his career.