Sleeksays

Washington Capitals (10-4-3, 4th in east) at Anaheim Ducks (10-7-2, t-4th in west) NHL's other poster child is in town. Welcome to the second installment of Brian Burke Week, as I ponder back on the Anaheim yester-legacy of the mouthy one. Yesterday I made a case for three moves that I think Burke gets too much flak for ; today it's time for Part II: Criticizing three Burke moves that I don't think get enough flak. A few things (1) I'm not going to include the Todd Bertuzzi signing; that one's so obviously bad that I don't know if it's worth discussing. Just know that my list has these three things plus signing Todd Bertuzzi. I'm still not passing judgment on Brendan Morrison, either (he gets a free pass for a while because two knowledgeable Canucks fans I talked to were shocked that B-Mo was even playing already) . (2) I am not saying that any of these moves are guaranteed to fail -- there's still judgment to be made on all of them. It's jus...

Detroit Red Wings (7-1-1, 2nd in west) at Anaheim Ducks (5-5-0, t-5th in west) Ah, it's never felt so good to be back at .500 Well, I don't know if it was a lucky mix of positivity and poetry (Poetrivity!) , but somehow the Ducks pulled off a nice 4-game sweep on their road trip, to nicely recover from their 0-4 season start. There's still plenty of things to improve on for the Ducks, but I'm still at the point that I care more that they are getting points than worrying too much about how they're getting them. Suffice to say that it was a fortunate road trip (really? only the third time ever a team has swept eastern Canada ?) , and it was extremely helpful to score the first two goals in each of the first three games. But probably the one event on the road trip that probably shouldn't be overlooked was Ryan Getzlaf's trip to the dentist . Getzlaf had a virus removed from his gum that kept him out of the game in Toronto, but apparently the virus was ad...

Absolutely nothing is working for the top lines of the Ducks, but the bottom two lines are thriving. Rob N., Pahlsson, Moen, Marchant, Carter, May, Parros, and Sutherby -- those eight players have combined for 6 goals and 8 assists, and Carter, May, and Parros are each +3 -0 at even strength. Getzlaf, Kunitz, Perry, Selanne, and Morrison? That fivesome has but 1 goal and 1 assist between them (not even on the same goal) , a collective +3 -17 at even strength, plus they're taking a whackload of stupid frustration penalties. So why not mix it up? I know that the Ducks looked pretty good for most of tonight, but what's the downside in trying this? Kunitz - Getzlaf - Selanne Marchant - Morrison - Perry Moen - Pahlsson - Niedermayer May - Carter - Sutherby - Parros There's obviously a lot of room for shuffling, but should Carlyle just stop forcing Getzlaf-Perry and Morrison-Selanne? Can changing primary partners help ignite what's been so far an awfully stale offense? I don...

Anaheim Ducks (t-1st in west) at San Jose Sharks (t-1st in west) Winner of tonight�s game is on top of the west! Ah, the beauty of a new NHL season afoot, and what better way to kick it off than with a good ol� Battle of California (competitive version) ? Yeah, I know there were some "counting" games already played in Europe, and Ducks/Sharks is the only game on tonight's schedule without some version of national coverage, but I can�t care. Because tonight is Ducks-Sharks, one of my favorite matchups since the lockout. It's a measuring-stick game, a pride game, and an awesome way to start the NHL season (assuming the Sharks have paid their electricity bill this year) . To open this set of Gamedays and this NHL season, Mike Chen and I devised a little cross-state exercise. You know Mike, of course, from Battle of California, though I heard he has some side gig too . Anyways, instead of rehashing our own previews again, we instead decided to write about the oppositio...