Good day, Anaheim Ducks fans! The Ducks continue their five-game road-trip onward to Tampa Bay after taking a 3-2 shootout loss to the Washington Capitals. The Ducks are 1-0-1 on the road-trip thus far, defeating the Nashville Predators on Thursday by a final score of 5-2. However, the Ducks have not played entirely well in either game. The Ducks have been outshot 80-51 in the two contests, including by a whopping 37-8 in the third-periods of those games (they hold a 41-40 shot advantage in the first two periods).
This is, of course, discouraging. Most teams cannot hope to win games when ceding 40 shots on goal without being helped by stellar goaltending. Frederik Andersen has been tremendous in net all season, and Ilya Bryzgalov turned in an excellent performance against the Capitals, but the Ducks cannot continue to lean so heavily on their goaltending to pull them through games.
The main positive from these two games is that the Ducks managed to pull three of a possible four-points in the standings without the services of Ryan Getzlaf, who sat out both games with the ever-clear “lower-body injury”. Corey Perry has four goals in his previous three games, while Ryan Kesler has five points in that span as well. Even when the Ducks have been without their best player, they have managed to step up and at least stay competitive.
That is a testament to the depth on the team, but also a testament to another fact: the Ducks are able to stay competitive with effort. For the game against the Capitals, they were on the second-leg of a back-to-back, so the effort was not entirely there (though it was certainly there for Washington, who was in the same situation). However, the Ducks have made a habit for not going for the jugular in games this season, and they have let opponents hang around.
It’s a major reason why the team has played 30 one-goal games. Even if their record in those games is 23-0-7 (88.3%), they are only 11-12 in multi-goal contests (47.8%). Great teams win most of their contests in all types of games, not just one area (whether close or blowout, high-scoring or defensively-oriented). The lack of effort has been a huge reason why the ice has been in favor of the opposing club.
The other part, of course, is that the Ducks are an imperfect team, especially on the back-end. The team’s weakness is on defense: this has been true from the beginning of the season, and there are plenty of rumors that the Ducks will look to address that at the deadline this season.
Here are some Ducks and NHL news for the day.
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Anaheim Ducks set up well for playoff run (TSN)
Could the Anaheim Ducks trade Matt Beleskey? (Sportsnet)
Sami Vatanen, Rickard Rakell giving boost to Anaheim Ducks for playoff push (Puck Daddy)
Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings looking for defense at trade deadline (LA Daily News)
Henrik Lundqvist set to miss three weeks with injury (NHL)
Bobby Ryan deserves to be in the Selke Trophy conversation (Senshot)
What is the trade value of Evander Kane of the Winnipeg Jets? (ESPN)
The Boston Bruins visit children’s hospitals (Causeway Crowd)
The market for Evander Kane, report on Mike Richards, and more trade talk (TSN)
The Dallas Stars need Anders Lindback to be their savior (Blackout Dallas)