Sleeksays

Columbus Blue Jackets (11-12-3, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (14-10-3, t-4th in west) No, we will not die like dogs! We will fight like lions! "Three Patos, Anaheim, California. You are very great. 100,000 pesos. Come to Santa Poco, put on show, stop. The Infamous El Guapo." In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face. Sometimes that El Guapo is the Columbus Blue Jackets. Prediction: Ducks 4, Jackets 2. Goals by Little Neddy Niedermayer, Dusty Pronger, Lucky Day Selanne, and Santa Poco resident Pahlsson. Together they prune the hedges of many small villages. For your El Guapo coverage, go visit Bethany's Hockey Rants . Go Ducks.

Anaheim Ducks (10-8-2, 7th in west) at St. Louis Blues (6-8-2, 15th in west) Ducks had better have a better start or somebody's going to the dentist! So for Part IV of this series, I thought I'd take a look at some of the ways that Burke was a very good general manager -- things that worked for the Ducks not only on their Cup run but also looking forward. Think of these as a bit of a primer for good ol' Bob Murray, or more accurately, Part IV: What I like about Burke the roster-builder . Lesson One: If you want depth, don't acquire depth players; instead insert talent at the top of your roster. While I've stated before that I�m not overly impressed that Burke had the "wisdom" to acquire Niedermayer, Selanne, or Pronger, I don�t want to take away from the fact that Burke knew what he was going after � a superstar. His focus wasn�t on filling in his roster with supplementary depth players, though he certainly put those pieces in place as well; he was loo...

Well here's something I thought I'd never live long enough to see: an Anaheim Duck atop the league leaderboard?! Congratulations to Getzlaf, Perry, and Selanne for continuing their offensive surge, including a combined 4 goals and 2 assists against the injury-depleted Blues last night. The Sharks should probably beat up the Blues again tonight, especially with Paul Kariya leaving last night's game in the second period with an ever-vague lower-body injury. The Ducks' 8-0-1 record within their last nine games has pulled the team briefly, at least, within three points of the league-leading Sharks. While the Ducks have played at least two more games than 28 NHL teams, it's still brought them up to the third-highest point total in the league, which is the subject of today's PuckToon . It's still difficult to tell you how good these Anaheim Ducks are or can be, but one thing is true: they are winning games in a lot of different ways, and are becoming awfully diffi...

St. Louis Blues (5-5-0, t-10th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (8-5-1, 3rd in west) Yeah, I was yelling "Blue-urns". Well, another moderately-deserved two points snatched in L.A. last night, but I'll tell you -- the 2nd and 4th lines looked pretty outmatched through most of the night. Brendan Morrison is still struggling to produce, though I still don't mind his overall positional play, but I also think that Teemu's not fighting through enough checks, and Todd Marchant hasn't carried a scoring line since ever. But hey, today's a new day and a new opponent -- the St. Louis Blues. Fun Fact: Did you know that St. Louis is in the Central Division, home of the Detroit Red Wings? Yeah, of course you knew that, but I'm horrible at segues. But now that we're talking about Detroit, our friend, now mysteriously known as "The Swede" (though tireless research has revealed he doesn't live in Sweden ) , has produced another comic book masterpiece, thi...

Anaheim Ducks (7-5-1, t-3rd in west) at Los Angeles Kings (3-6-1, 15th in west) Let's try this again, shall we? Lots to talk about on the Anaheim end of things, plus I'm sure Rudy's got plenty of Kings stuff to add, so let's get moving. First off is the Six Games of Jekyll / Seven Games of Hyde that's started off the Ducks' year. 1-5-0 in the first six, then 6-0-1 in the last seven, and the primary difference appears to be offense: the Ducks jumped from 2.17 goals scored per game to 4.14, and the power play jumped from a 1-for-24 success ratio to a 10-for-30 over the last seven games. Meanwhile, defense and penalty killing for the Ducks have stayed remarkably consistent (goals-against per game went from 3.33 to 3.29; penalty killing went from 80.6% to 80.5%) . As noted, the primary driver for this improved offense has been the awakening of the three-headed first star of the week : Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and Teemu Selanne. The table below shows the improve...

Now I don't want to over-emphasize the point of this post, as really, I don't care very much at all about the NHL's Three Stars of the Week. It's an announcement that pretty much every week escapes my notice, as generally it's a collection of east-coast players named Sidney or Alexander or something, with an occasional west-coaster tossed in for "parity". But what is the poor NHL to do when the top three scorers of the week all come from the easy-to-neglect Anaheim Ducks? It certainly couldn't have a weekly ceremony without any mention of its favorite conference, could it? Nah, of course not. After meeting late into the night, the NHL brass came up with a brilliant compromise: why not just combine all three Duck players as one three-headed "First Star of the Week" , conveniently leaving two spots available to throw a nod to Boston's Tim Thomas and Philadelphia's Simon Gagne? Certainly it was a brave maneuver that had never been done b...

Some people wonder why Ducks fans are so patient for Teemu Selanne to make retirement decisions. Oct. 27, ANA @ CBJ: 16:05 3rd: Selanne 3 PP (Beauchemin, Getzlaf) Oct. 29, DET @ ANA: 14:11 1st: Selanne 4 PP (Getzlaf, Pronger) (5-on-3) 19:09 2nd: Selanne 5 PP (Getzlaf, Niedermayer) (5-on-3) 4:50 3rd: Selanne 6 PP (Pronger, Getzlaf) Oct. 31, VAN @ ANA: 12:24 1st: Selanne 7 PP (Pronger, Perry) 17:17 2nd: Selanne 8 PP (Perry, Niedermayer) Six consecutive regulation periods with a power play goal scored. Talk about one guy resurrecting a stale power play percentage. Pretty damn amazing, Teemu. * * * The Ducks' win streak came to an end Halloween night in a game that seemed to be haunted . The Ducks opened with two PP goals (one on a Luongo miscue) , but Bernier got one back for the Canucks 19 seconds later. That would end up being the first of five straight Vancouver goals -- over a span of 7:22 in the second, they scored on four consecutive shots. 18 seconds later, the Ducks resp...

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...