Anaheim Ducks Are Losing Patience and Tempers Are Flaring
The Anaheim Ducks have kept a positive attitude despite early struggles, but recently their patience has grown thin and the blame game has begun.
For the most part, Anaheim Ducks head coach Bruce Boudreau has kept a level head despite his teams struggles. Early on in the season he exerted a confident belief that his team was going to turn things around, assuming that there was simply too much talent on his roster for the poor play to continue.
Well, it’s Christmas time and the struggle is still real and unless I’ve missed something, no signs of better play have surfaced.
It’s been inconsistency for the most part, the Ducks have put together a winning streak of more than two games just once so far this season. They’ve failed to play 60 minutes of perfect hockey and the lack of focus, consistency and leadership is finally driving this team mad.
The loss to the Rangers was a tough one. The Ducks played well defensively and their penalty kill was again incredible for the most part. The Rangers had a hard time generating quality scoring chances at five-on-five, that is until the Ducks handed them opportunities.
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Josh Manson had the puck just inside his own blue-line, looking to make a pass as a forechecker, Derrick Brassard, was approaching him straight on. Manson had Lindholm up the boards to his left and room to his right to chip the puck up ice, he instead decided to try and saucer a pass straight forward over the stick of Brassard in an attempt to get the puck to Nate Thompson.
Long story short, Brassard knocked down the pass and scored.
Later in the game, Jiri Sekac had the puck behind Gibson and had room to make a play as he skated up the ice. Defensemen Kevin Bieksa decided it was best to sit at the blue-line and wait for a pass while Josh Manson didn’t offer much help either.
Sekac, a forward carrying the puck out from behind his own net, attempted to chip the puck straight up the ice and again the Rangers intercepted the pass and capitalized on a 2-on-0. It was again Derrick Brassard who scored off of a lazy Ducks turnover, Manson and Sekac should expect his holiday thank you card to arrive shortly after Christmas.
After the game when asked about the turnovers, Bruce Boudreau didn’t hold back, he let the media know exactly how he felt about the young guys costly fumbles with the puck.
He’s absolutely right in his criticism, the two young guys made rookie type of mistakes and it’s unacceptable. However, this is the first time all season that Boudreau has really drilled into his teams play and specific guys play when asked about it by the media.
The Ducks have prided themsleves on good defense during this scoring drought and the turnovers in the Rangers game went against what this team has been doing to stay afloat. Boudreau had every right to rip his guys after the game, but will it light a fire in Manson, Sekac and the rest of the team?
Why would now all of a sudden Boudreau’s words change things? You have to believe the F-bombs have been dropped in the locker room nearly every game, so why would something Boudreau said to the media change things.
Boudreau seems fed up and at a loss for what is happening on the ice and his team seems to have no response for criticism either.
The Ducks patience is thin and their coach has become overly critical of their play, but does this team even listen to Boudreau anymore or still believe he is the man to lead them to the promise land?
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You can count on one hand the number of guys who play hard every single night. Guys like Kesler and Cogliano seem to be the only ones charged up on most nights and when that’s the case, you have to start questioning the belief of this team.
Boudreau can’t get any of his star players to dominate every night and he can’t get his team to play hard for long stretches.
If the media session was Boudreau’s attempt to show he isn’t afraid to rip his team publicly, well I think it’s a little too late and I’m not sure any Ducks player will wake up because of it.
Everyone has criticized this team over the past couple of months and it seems as though Boudreau’s comments will be irrelevant.
Words are simply words and Boudreau has taken little action to wake this team up.
Kevin Bieksa has been awful so far but has not found his way to the press box yet and he continues to play big minutes. Ryan Getzlaf has one empty net goal but still centers the top line.
These 30 year old men are not going to lose sleep over Boudreau’s critical media sessions, it’s going to take drastic measures of humiliating the veterans to show that their poor play is embarrassing.
This team seems to be going down the wrong path and I’m not sure how much longer they can keep good spirits in hopes that things will turn around.
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Boudreau has started to show frustration and I think others may soon follow, both losses in New York were heartbreaking. Good thing it’s the holiday season, otherwise depression may be hitting Anaheim hard if it hasn’t already.
Boudreau’s harsh criticism may hurt the feelings of some 14 year old junior pee wee players, but not NHL’ers. It’s time for the coach to stop acting like a junior pee wee coach, take some action and do something about your best players underperforming.