Sleeksays

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...

Anaheim Ducks (1-5-0, 15th in west) at Toronto Maple Leafs (1-2-2, t-11th in east) When's the last time you looked longingly at Toronto's record? (I wasn't asking you, Kings fans.) Yeah, sometimes I'm lazy enough for a good google image search, so sue me (note to Disney: please don't sue me) . Not too much from me today, as I didn't even get to watch the Carolina outing, but I did want to revisit a post I wrote way back in June that explored the notion of Brian Burke taking a Maple Leafs GM job next summer . I really made two points: (1) Brian Burke has gotten lucky at times, in particular with his acquisitions of Niedermayer, Pronger, and Selanne, and (2) I was fine with Burke leaving, as there is a fairly open roster next year for a replacement GM to work with. Of course, that latter point isn't looking so strong these days, as the three biggest contracts Burke has locked the Ducks into are: R. Getzlaf, 6 gp, 0-1-1, -5 � 5 years, $26.625 million C. Perr...