Ducks Look Ahead

After an embarrassing opening night game against the Sharks, the Ducks will finally put the loss behind them as they’ve left Anaheim to begin their four-game road trip. The team left on Sunday afternoon and will play its first game against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday at 6:00pm PST. As with all teams on their first significant road trip, the Ducks would like to build some team chemistry on and off the ice as they finally spend some quality time together.

In a game where no Ducks player played well Saturday, except maybe Luca Sbisa, the Ducks are glad to move on. Veterans like Teemu Selanne have already brushed off the game as just one of the many bad games a team plays over the course of an 82 game season, joking that “The good thing is there’s 81 left.” Even Coach Randy Carlyle decided it was more of a learning experience and that the mistakes made were “correctable.”

So what do the Ducks need to do better? Well…everything, really. The power play started off good but couldn’t convert until the third period, and also allowed a short-handed goal in the first. The penalty kill was not terrible but were running around and did eventually give up a power play goal. The RPG line was thoroughly dominated by Joe Thornton’s line, and the Ducks’ defense was soft. Jonas Hiller played well and made a few big saves, but he didn’t make a big save in the first period to keep the Ducks in the game.

Is that it? I can definitely come up with more, but these are the worst offenses the team committed. But to be honest, the offensive issues will work themselves out as the season progresses. The Ducks have a ton of firepower up front and it will start to click. We all just hope that it starts on Tuesday rather than later.

But another aspect can also be fixed. The softness the Ducks played with cannot be overlooked and should actually be emphasized. We all knew the loss of Chris Pronger would hurt us here, but not a single Ducks defenceman stood up for themselves or their teammates on Saturday. Nick Boynton was not in the lineup, and that type of play is his specialty. He is a big, rugged defender that opposing players will fear as they think about coming near the crease area. Look for Carlyle to try to add Boynton to the lineup tomorrow night.

So if Boynton is the magic tonic, why isn’t he a lock for the lineup? The reason is Boynton has had a very difficult time learning the Ducks system and Carlyle doesn’t feel comfortable putting him in a game situation yet. Carlyle also hinted that Boynton wasn’t putting in the required effort to make the team. Carlyle was quoted as saying ““Again, he’s in a re-programming stage [in] an understanding of how we would like our defencemen to play. All we’re asking is for him to commit to our team game. Commit to the work ethic that’s required to play with our group and things will be fine.”

On a different note, Petteri Nokelainen has not been practicing with the team for many days now as he is still having issues with his injured groin. It will be very surprising if he plays on this upcoming road trip.

On another different note, did anyone like Hiller’s new mask? It was a dark maroon/gold/orange-ish color (you wouldn’t think these colors could be mixed or confused, but you’ve got to see the mask) and looked like it had outlines of images in black, making it impossible to see with the lack of contrast between the colors. See the below image, taken by Jeff Gross of Getty Images.