The Anaheim Ducks are in a hole, they will have to play excellent hockey from here on out if they want to find themselves in the playoff picture come February and March.
Injuries have not helped Anaheim’s slow start. Captain Ryan Getzlaf remains out while recovering from a successful appendectomy surgery that occurred Wednesday. Luckily for the Ducks, they will face the St. Louis Blues tonight, one of the NHL’s most banged up teams.
Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz, Patrik Berglund and Kevin Shattenkirk all remain out with injuries and will not be in the lineup for the Blues tonight.
This is a great opportunity for the Ducks to gain some confidence if they can play a strong 60 minute game against a depleted St. Louis squad.
Orange County Register’s Eric Stephens and NHL.com correspondent Louie Korac are both reporting that Bruce Boudreau has decided to shake things up tonight based on what he saw in Tuesday nights game at Dallas.
Ryan Kesler will move up to center the first line, playing in-between Carl Hagelin and Corey Perry.
This is interesting because on the Ducks third goal of the game in Dallas, it was Kesler who forced the turnover that led to Perry setting up Hagelin in front for a goal. Maybe Boudreau saw something during that sequence that sparked some interest in trying the trio together with Getzlaf out.
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This move is also one to hopefully get Ryan Kesler producing offensively. He has been somewhat non-existent in the offensive zone through the first nine games and putting him with Perry minimizes Kesler’s role as a defensive minded center. This move is possible through the strong defensive play of the guy who will now be centering the second line, Shawn Horcoff.
Horcoff will be playing with Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg on a new look ‘shutdown’ line that will have the task of stopping Blues top line goalscorer Vladamir Tarasenko. If you remember the Ducks second goal from the Dallas game, it was a Silfverberg and Cogliano forecheck that set up Horcoff for an easy goal.
So Boudreau’s top two lines tonight will feature two trios that have showed signs of chemistry.
The third line will be the familiar Jiri Sekac, Rickard Rakell and Chris Stewart. The three have played together at times this season and this is hopefully a move to re-ignite the chemistry between Sekac and Rakell that was on display throughout the preseason and early on this season.
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Boudreau’s fourth line will be centered by Chris Wagner who will play in-between Pat Maroon and Mike Santorelli. Tim Jackman was not very good against Dallas, icing the puck on a number of occasions and he also took a bad penalty which lead to Boudreau throwing Maroon back in the lineup tonight, no surprise there.
Boudreau’s defensive pairings will remain the same.
Clayton Stoner and Sami Vatanan were borderline awful against Dallas but with Simon Despres and Josh Manson still on IR, Boudreau is left with no choice but to leave things the same from the Tuesday night collapse in Dallas.
As for the Blues, their lineup will feature a lot of young forwards.
Ty Rattie, Robby Fabbri and Dmitrij Jaskin are the names you are likely unfamiliar with but due to the Blues plethora of injuries, they will all play a big role tonight for St. Louis.
Defensemen Alex Pietrangelo will eat up minutes for the Blues tonight with Shattenkirk out and we will get our first look at rookie defensemen Colton Parayko.
Parayko is a whopping 6 foot 5, 200 pounds and he has drawn comparisons to Shea Weber due to his great shot from the point. He loves to shoot the puck and leads all rookie defensemen in shot attempts per game. When you see Parayko wind up on the blue-line, hold your breathe.
The goaltending matchup will be Jake Allen versus Freddie Andersen, battle of the young guns.
Let’s see if Boudreau’s line juggling sparks a consistent offensive, defensive and forechecking performance.
Make sure to follow us on twitter ( @pucksofafeather ) for in-game reactions and leave some comments or tweet us with your thoughts on the new look Ducks lineup!
Next: Anaheim Ducks Coaching Dilemma Goes Beyond Firing Boudreau
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