Sleeksays

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...

Vancouver Canucks (5-5-0, t-7th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (6-5-0, 5th in west) Trick or treat? Teemu takes Trick. Sorry this gameday post was so late in coming, but I was under the assumption that the NHL was going to suspend all regular season games until its posterchild Sid Crosby recovered from his mystery injury. Whoops! At any rate, because I was so bored at work today I thought I'd revisit an old study I did about the success of teams visiting SoCal to play both the Kings and the Ducks. In the table below, I've pooled together all the instances since the lockout when a visiting team played at the Honda Center and the Staples Center within two days of each other, then separated the results according to (a) which arena they visited first, and (b) how many days separated the games. Keep in mind, this table shows visiting opponent results, not the results for the home teams: (click image to enlarge) There's a lot of data thrown in this table (and sorry for the shoddy ...

Los Angeles Kings (3-4-1) vs. Vancouver Canucks (4-5) 7:30 PST, Fox Sports West Patrick O'Sullivan will skate with Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar tonight, reuniting the Sandman Line* that was so effective in the 2nd half of last season. It's all well and good for those three because they love playing with one another, but the question I have is: why? Kopitar, Brown, and O'Sullivan are all playing over 18 minutes a game and they're all averaging about a point a game on separate lines. Kopitar and Brown have been effective though somewhat smothered by opposing defenses, while O'Sullivan has been the driving force on the third line** alongside Jarret Stoll and Oscar Moller. It seems like this is a move designed to end Kopitar's perceived struggles, but at the expense of the Kings' newfound offensive depth. *I call them the Sandman Line because they put opponents to sleep. Actually, it's because they all look really tired. **Can we end the whole chara...