Pucks of a Feather
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Why the Anaheim Ducks Should See Game 2 as a Long-Term Victory

By Richard Spalding

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Losing a hard-fought playoff game in triple overtime is never fun, but there are a few reasons to believe this victory will be short-lived for Chicago.

Let’s just get this out of the way: if you were at the Honda Center last night or watching the Anaheim Ducks – Chicago Blackhawks game on television, the final result of the contest sucked.

Yep – losing a game like that is a tough one, especially when there are so many “What if?” moments.  What if the Ducks had started the game a bit more disciplined?  What if just one of the four shots that clanged off of the pipes had gone in?

Losing a game like Game 2 could demoralize a team and cause a downward slide . . . but that’s not going to happen, my friends.

As a matter of fact, I’m here to tell you that losing Game 2 may have actually won the war for the Anaheim Ducks.  No kidding.

First of all, we have all seen how resilient this year’s Ducks are.  We don’t need to hear players like Ryan Getzlaf and Sami Vatanen tell us that Anaheim will bounce back, although it never hurts:

The team didn’t fold in front of a hostile crowd in Winnipeg, and it didn’t collapse after Calgary won Game 3 of the Western Conference Semifinals in overtime.  There’s no chance the team will be throwing in the towel following one loss against the Blackhawks.

Better still, last night’s game was EXACTLY the sort of game that the Blackhawks did NOT want to have to play.  This is a team that is relying heavily on three defensemen – Duncan Ketih, Brent Seabrook, and Niklas Hjalmarsson – and rolling out a few liabilities for 20 second shifts just to give those three guys a quick blow.

With that in mind, check out this screenshot of the box score from last night, focusing on the number of hits the Ducks dished out and the three players who logged the most ice time for the Blackhawks.

Keith, Seabrook and Hjalmarsson are sore as hell today, and with less than 48 hours in between Game 2 and 3, their bodies are not going to have much time to repair, especially when you consider that a large number of the 71 hits that Anaheim tallied were directed at Chicago’s d-corps.

The way Anaheim is rolling out four lines that are able to generate offensive zone chances guarantees that Chicago’s top three defensemen will continue to log close to 30 minutes of TOI each and every game. Bludgeoning Chicago’s blueliners and forcing Joel Quenneville to play those guys for huge stretches at a time is a long-term strategy that WILL pay off in the long run; going to triple overtime was the cherry on top.   I’m not bold enough to start making series predictions, but I will remind everyone that the Conference Finals are a marathon, not a sprint.

At this rate, Chicago will be too exhausted to make it to the finish line.

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