Sleeksays

Anaheim Ducks (0-2-0, last in west) at Los Angeles Kings (0-2-0, last in west) Battle of the Basement Sorry I've been a bit invisible the last couple of days; I've been steering clear of the blog, mainly because of the frustrating play of the Anaheim Ducks. It's not just that they're 0-2 that bothers me (only once in franchise history have the Ducks started 2-0) , but it's the manner in which games are being lost that really sucks. It's a pattern that dates back to the Dallas series last spring, and I've put a table together that lists the last seven times an opponent has broken a tie against the Ducks. All seven times the Ducks also allowed the next goal for a 2-goal deficit, and in six of seven times the lead was extended to 3 goals, on average less than 20 minutes later. Game Time Elapsed Until Deficit Extends to 2 Time Elapsed Until Deficit Extends to 3 G1 v DAL 6:09 12:33 G2 v DAL 15:00 G2 v DAL 0:55 8:49 G4 @ DAL 32:22 40:38 G6 @ DAL 15:32 17:46 G1 ...

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...