Getzy’s Booboo and Ducks 1, Preds 4

In other news, the Ducks did it again, blowing a game to a team that’s been described by other writers as “bland”, “forgettable” and “nondescript”.  In front of a Honda Center crowd of 12 (okay, okay, it was actually 12,200+, a season low) The Nashville Predators received a gift early in the first period when after a lengthy battle before the net, a Smithson stuff was ruled to have been over the goal line under Jonas Hiller’s pad before Hiller’s leg was pushed into the goal.  Hiller’s desultory comment says it all:

“I have no idea how it got in or anything.  I don’t know how [Toronto] saw that, but its part of the game.”

To make a painful story short, the Preds nailed us to the boards 4-1 (including two incredibly embarrassing empty netters) with our only goal produced by Saku Koivu who took a feed from Dan Sexton, with 8:14 left in the game.

Even the perpetually positive Teemu Selanne was a negative nancy: “This was terrible. It’s like we didn’t have the fear factor against this team. It was like a summer league game. Ridiculous. We need to play the same way against everybody.”

We can play the blame game all we want, but it won’t wash. We’ve won games against tougher opponents with key players missing and worn out goaltenders before. No one had anything good to say about this game. In fact, Hiller had the perfect caveat:

“It looked like we were just expecting good things to happen, but we forgot to work for it.”

Tomorrow we face the Blue Jackets…let’s keep our fingers and toes crossed!