Have the Ducks hit bottom yet?  If that were the case, there would be nowhere to go but up.  The Columbus Blue Jackets are the only team beneath Anaheim in the Western Conference, as well as the NHL.  And even the Blue Jackets, who have a whopping two wins, were able to defeat the Ducks.  Ouch.

It gets a little old to have the same excuses and discussions rehashed over and over again.  The media and the team could save themselves a lot of time and effort if they could just agree to use the same quotes. 

This is beginning to feel a lot like Groundhog's Day, the movie.  How many times will we have to see the same errors and the same result? 

Nashville scored early, getting on the board at 1:20 of the first period on the first of two goals from Craig Smith.  Smith, who played on a line with Patric Hornqvist and Colin Wilson, was hot against the Ducks all evening long.  So was Martin Erat, who was a one man wrecking crew.

Wilson made it 2-0 at 4:54 and Anaheim found themselves behind the eight ball again.  Stop me if you've heard this before. 

"We definitely dug ourselves a hole," coach Randy Carlyle stated. "They had two shots on net and it was 2-0. That is a mountain you have to climb."

Devante Smith-Pelly got his first goal of the year at 19:21 by virtue of standing in front of the net.  Cam Fowler was initially given the goal, but after the game it was handed over to Smith-Pelly, as the puck deflected off his knee and into the net behind Pekke Rinne. 

The Ducks certainly played better in the second period and would have had a good chance to get back in the game except for one little detail. 

The Predators scored on a penalty shot while short handed at 12:48.  Thank you Martin Erat. 

As in games past, the Ducks could not recover.   Francois Beauchemin's goal at 14:12 brought the Ducks back within one.  Smith's second goal at 1:36 of the third period, however, sealed the deal for the Predators.

Were it not for a lot of things, the Ducks might have had a chance in the game.  Instead, they were fighting an uphill and losing battle once more. 

"It’s hard. We’re letting each other down out there," said Ryan Getzlaf, who must have drawn the short straw as captain to address the media after the game. "These little mistakes that we are making, it’s costing us. The margin for error is so small in this game."

Thank you Captain Obvious.

Six losses in a row?  Really?  In January 2008 they had six losses, one of them in overtime, and came back to regroup for the rest of the season.  Before that you have to go back to the 2002-2003 season with the annual post Christmas slump.

This season?  Started off pretty well at 4-1-0 and it has tanked ever since.

"It’s really tough," said Fowler. "There is not much to be said. We’re in a funk right now. It’s up to us to battle and try to get out of it."

New battle begins on Friday against the Vancouver Canucks.  Battle is the operative word as the Ducks have their annual salute to the military that evening. 

If the Ducks lose a seventh game straight.....well, one shudders to think about how low can they go.  Teemu Selanne decided to play one more year for this?!

While George Parros is out of the Anaheim Ducks line up for the next four weeks recovering from a retinal tear, he better start thinking "visor."  His latest eye injuries can be added to the growing list of reasons why they should be mandatory.

In hockey, pucks happen.  As do sticks.  And other flukes of nature. 

Do visors protect in all cases?  No.  But do they protect more than not wearing a visor at all?  Absolutely.

Parros got his warning from God on October 27, when he was struck in the face with an errant puck at practice.  His right eye took the hit (thank you Andrew Gordon.)  A few stitches here and there, and things seemed good to go.

Then last Friday, eight days after the first incident, another errant puck at practice hit Parros.  This time it hit the left eye.  Or as Parros tweeted, his left eye was jealous of all the attention that his right eye was getting. 

No need for the eye to jealous any more.   That left eye is getting more attention than it wanted thanks to having a retinal tear.

The tear was repaired on Monday morning by laser surgery and Parros will be gone for the next four weeks for recovery. 

This is not the first time that an eye injury has sidelined Parros.  In November 2008 he was struck in the eye with an errant stick during a game against the Vancouver Canucks.  Parros wore a visor while the eye was healing, a first for the enforcer since his junior days. 

The likelihood is good that he will be told he'll need to wear a visor again. 

If so, he will be in good company.  Former Duck, Chris Pronger, caught a stick in his eye in October, taking him out of the Philadelphia Flyers line up.  He is expected to return to the line up wearing a visor for the first time in his career.   Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf took a puck to his forehead, breaking bones in his face in January and he was out of commission for six weeks.  He wore a visor when he returned to the line up and the visor has not come off since. 

Although Parros is not critical to the Ducks success on ice, players like Getzlaf and Pronger are important members of their team.  What they all have in common was preventable injuries. 

Just ask Francois Beauchemin how grateful he was for a visor when he was hit in the face with a puck during a recent game.  He had a compression cut to his eyebrow, but he was back on the ice after he was stitched up.  Inconvenient, but nothing to lose an eye over.

Jordan Smith was not so fortunate.  The one time Ducks prospect was struck by a puck in the eye while playing in the AHL on February 24, 2006.  The damage was so complete, there was nothing doctors could do to save the eye.  Visors were made mandatory at the AHL level beginning that fall of 2006. 

Eyesight is precious and life is too short to spend it being stupidly visorless.

It is not a difficult thing to remove your helmet when fighting an opponent on the ice.  It does not make you less manly.  Not wearing a visor does make you look pretty dumb, though, especially in this day and age.

It is a risk that should not be taken.  This latest preventable injury certainly proves that.

That being said, get well soon, George!  I guess he focus all his energy on growing his Movember mustache. 

Some things are predictable.   The sun will rise in east.   You will pay taxes.  You will die.   Kim Kardashian's marriage will not last.   The Ducks will lose when they play in Detroit in the regular season.  

The last time hell froze over (in other words, the Ducks won a game at the Joe Louis Arena) was February 10, 2008. 

In Saturday's match up between the Red Wings and Anaheim, there was no worries of Satan doing a little ice skating any time soon. 

Does it matter that Detroit was on a six game losing streak?  Not when the Ducks come to town. 

Suddenly the Detroit Red Wings looked like....well, the Detroit Red Wings, not the Dead Things.  The only dead things were the Ducks. 

It was a Swedish revival on ice at the Joe Louis Arena. 

Niklas Kronwall scored.  Nicklas Lidstrom scored.  Twice.  Henrik Zetterberg scored.  Johan Franzen scored.  Tre kronor, five goals.

Anaheim?  Jonas Hiller stopped 40 shots.  After goal number five went past midway through the third period, coach Randy Carlyle felt that Hiller had had enough.  Dan Ellis got to take a turn in the shooting gallery and stopped five more shots. 

For those of you who can't add quickly enough, that was 50 shots on goal for the Red Wings. 

The Ducks?  Jimmy Howard did not have nearly as much work at the other end of the ice and only faced 22 shots on goal.  Not quite asterisk worthy, but certainly he did not have a heavy burden to bear. 

Getting a goal from Luca Sbisa called off because Corey Perry was interfering with Howard certainly helped with the shut out. 

Getting Teemu Selanne to the showers early helped.  Selanne got an unsportsmanlike conduct, apparently fed up with what he perceived to be poor officiating.  Because officials everywhere love to be verbally abused and harangued, (not) Selanne got a two minute minor.  And a misconduct for not stopping.  And how about that game misconduct as well for ignoring the previous two warnings?  In NHL rule terms, Teemu reached his three strikes limit.  Nakamiin Teemu!

Better for the Ducks to get out of town and take what is left of their dignity with them.  Then again, what dignity?  A road trip that went 1-3-3? 

"We needed a win badly," said Red Wings coach Mike Babcock. "To tell you the truth, I would've taken playing poorly and winning – because we've played a lot of good games and not won. We just needed to win and it was nice to see some guys score some goals, so you can get the weight of the world off your back."

One can only hope that these will be the same words that Carlyle will echo on Wednesday night after Nashville comes to town.  The weight is still on Anaheim's back and the sooner they shed it, the better.   Assuming they remember how to score and how to win.

IN OTHER NOTES:  Peter Holland, who was called up this morning from Syracuse, made his NHL debut.  When one envisions one's NHL debut, the 5-0 debacle that he got to witness up close and personal from the bench was not what anyone ever has in mind. 


 

The Ducks had already met up with the New York Rangers when they began the season in Europe.  Anaheim earned a 2-1 shootout victory in Stockholm, Sweden, which was the start of a four game winning streak. 

Meeting up with the Rangers in New York was deja vu for the Ducks, right down to the score of 2-1 in a shootout.  The only problem was that this time the Rangers were the victorious ones, not the Ducks.

Stop me if you have heard this one before, but the Ducks got off to a slow start.  Their top line looked out of synch. 

New York, who did not insert a recently called up Sean Avery into their line up, scored first.  Jeff Woywitka got a rare goal to put the Rangers on the board at 17:32 of the first period.

Things did not look good for the Ducks until the second period.  Finally they woke up and figured out how to get a few shots on goal. 

By the end of the second period, one of those shots finally went in the net behind Henrik Lundqvist.  Bobby Ryan scored at 18:18, with assists to his linemates, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.  Maybe things would not end so poorly after all.

The Ducks controlled most of the third period, holding the Rangers to no shots on goal in the final 10 minutes of the game.  However, nothing else found its way behind Lundqvist. 

For the second game in a row, the Ducks headed to overtime.  Unlike the loss to the Washington Capitals, which ended in the extra period, this one went on to the shootout. 

Eric Christensen, who seems to merely be in the NHL for his shootout talents, got his shot past Jonas Hiller, the puck floating in under Hiller's left leg pad.  Teemu Selanne tied it up in the second round by roofing the puck beautifully up and in the net.  Marian Gaborik put his shot past Hiller, forcing Ryan to make his shot.  He did not. 

Game over.

"We found a way," said Rangers coach, John Tortorella. "We found a way to win it in the shootout and get two points.”

The Ducks continue to find ways to lose and have now lost seven of their past eight games and are 5-5-3 on the season.  13 points in 13 games.  Translate that through the end of the year, and you won't see the playoffs with 82 points. 

With only one more game left on this road trip, the chances of earning more points are not good.  Playing Saturday against the Detroit Red Wings, at Joe Louis Arena, just increased the odds of the Ducks losing eight out of nine.

Why so negative?  The last time the Ducks won in Detroit was....February 2008.  Historically, the Ducks are 3-24-7 at Joe Louis.  That is in nearly 20 years of doing business.  It is not negative, merely pragmatic and realistic.  

Then again, it had been a few years since the Ducks had won in Minnesota, and that did happen on this road trip.  Stranger things have happened.  But the odds are exceedingly grim. 

Things started off well for the Ducks, but boy did they take a wrong turn by the end of the game!  Instead of two points and a win on the road, the Ducks had to settle for one point in the 5-4 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals. 

Rather than their usual sluggish behavior on the ice, Anaheim came out with energy and a spring to their step.  After losing two in a row, they needed to turn things around and for the first half of the game, things looked promising.

Saku Koivu got the ball rolling with his first goal of the year at 9:05 of the opening frame.  Teemu Selanne, who assisted on Koivu's goal, made it 2-0 at 13:39 with a beautiful little tap in from Koivu.  He nearly made it 3-0 before the end of the period, but Tomas Vokoun was able to get a small piece of it and deflect it away from the net.

Selanne did capitalize on his next chance at 8:59 of the middle period.  Goals number 641 and 642 for a guy who plays like someone half his age.  That puts him in 13th place overall.  Next guy in sight?  Jaromir Jagr, who currently has 651 goals.  Jagr, who is two years younger than Selanne at 39, seems motivated to remain the all-time scoring European.  Won't this be a fun season to watch Selanne and Jagr duke it out?

The problem was that after going up 3-0, the Ducks started to sit back a little.  You cannot do that against any team, but especially not the Washington Capitals. 

The Capitals took advantage and quickly scored two goals.  Joel Ward got them on the board at 13:23 and Dennis Wideman brought them within one at 16:33.  

Coach Randy Carlyle wisely took a time out to settle his team down and perhaps get out a cattle prod to put a little life back into them.   It worked. 

The Ducks dominated the rest of the second period but could not sustain it for the remainder of the game.

Corey Perry gave the Ducks breathing room with a power play goal at 9:13 of the third period.  Selanne assisted.  Naturally.  Selanne's four point night was historical in that he was the first 41 year old player to have a 4 point game since 1972.  That is the year that Jagr was born. 

Andrew Cogliano, who was inserted on the second line with Koivu and Selanne, could do nothing but marvel at Selanne.

"I can't really explain," Cogliano said. "He's just impressive. I think that's the word. It seems like now you know why he's a future Hall of Famer. He scores so many goals, I think the puck just finds him. He thinks the game better than anyone out there."

If Selanne is "slowing down" with age, you certainly cannot tell.

However, instead of a feel good Selanne focus, the Capitals stole the spotlight back. 

The Capitals rallied back and came within a goal thanks to Troy Brouwer at 11:42.  The Ducks were trying to hold on, but Nicklas Backstrom became the hero by tying up the game at 19:18 with Vokoun pulled for the extra attacker. 

It would not have been as bad if the Ducks had held on to win in overtime or a shootout, but the Capitals added insult to injury with an overtime goal from Backstrom 2:18 into the extra period. 

Game over. 

"How we could give up the opportunity to [get] the extra point," Carlyle wondered after the game. "We had played so well earlier in the game and then we started to self-destruct. They're an offensive team that pounced on their chances, put pressure on us and we didn't react very well."

Perry summed it up best.

"It was tough to swallow."

The Ducks have to swallow their pride and take the bitter pill of yet another road loss as they now head to New York to meet up with the Rangers for the second time this season.  The first instance was in Sweden, where the Ducks won in a shootout.  This time, they will be in New York and Sean Avery will be in the line-up to annoy, vex and harass the Ducks and try to get them off their game.  It is what he excels at. 

Anaheim will need to remain focused for a full 60 minutes and do the things right that they did in the first half of the game against the Capitals.  If they can maintain that for the entire game (not just most of it), they have a much better chance of getting another notch in the win column.

J.F. Jacques has finally served all five games of his suspension that was handed down in the pre-season.  Of course most of the time was spent in airports between Syracuse and whereever the Ducks were playing on the road.  Having completed the required games, Jacques was then sent on yet another airplane back to Syracuse.   Again. 

Next summer he should be able to fly anywhere in the world for free on a vacation.  But will he want to?

Passing each other in the airwaves, Nick Bonino has gotten the call up to Anaheim (or more specifically, Washington, D.C., where they play on Tuesday night). 

Considering how horribly the Ducks have been playing of late, they could use a little infusion of youthful enthusiasm.  Bonino, 23, has scored a team-leading 2 goals and 11 points in nine games with Syracuse this season.  At the time of his recall, Bonino was tied for fourth among AHL leaders in assists and second on the Crunch in points-per-game (1.22).

The Ducks have three more road games before returning home on Sunday.  They must play the Washington Capitals (who are having an awesome season), the New York Rangers (whom they defeated in Stockholm in a shootout), and the Detroit Red Wings (when is the last time the Ducks won at Joe Louis in a non-playoff game?). 

It does not get any easier for the Ducks and they need to figure things out now.  Not in a month.  Not in March.  Now. 


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Tomorrow is Halloween, but the Ducks got an early trick from the Columbus Blue Jackets, who handed Anaheim their second loss in a row on the road. 

The Blue Jackets, on the other hand, got a real treat in what was their second win of the season, a 3-1 victory. 

You just knew that a team that was 1-9-1 on the season was going to be trouble for Anaheim.  After all, Anaheim once handed the Toronto Maple Leafs their first victory a month into their season.  Why not be generous to the Blue Jackets as well, giving them victory #2 on their season? 

Ugh.

At least the Ducks played better than they did the night before against Nashville.  And they were not shut out. 

After that, there is not much to praise.

The Ducks did not give up a goal within the first minute of the game.   That was progress.   They did give up a 5 on 3 power play at 1:36, however.  Both Saku Koivu and Teemu Selanne found themselves in the penalty box and the Blue Jackets took advantage.  Rick Nash scored at 2:23 and the Ducks found themselves behind once again. 

Bobby Ryan tied up the game at 8:24 of the first period.   He was the only player successful in getting the puck behind Steve Mason, who has struggled this year.  Of course he did not struggle against the Ducks.  In fact, Mason made a couple of spectacular saves during one power play in the second period that likely made the difference between a win or a loss for the Blue Jackets.

Columbus took the lead once more with a goal from youngster Ryan Johansen at 1:57 of the second.  Johansen is at the nine game look-see mark for the Blue Jackets, who have to decide whether to keep him or send him back to juniors.  Having the game winner seems a good case for him staying. 

Fedor Tyutin got the insurance marker at 12:52 of the second period and Anaheim never got any closer. 

It was not for lack of trying, but Mason refused to let anything past. 

Dan Ellis, who got a rare start for the Ducks, did not get enough support from his teammates to be able to do an effective job.  Allowing point blank shots in front of the net usually is leaving your goaltender hanging high and dry. 

Is it November yet? 

Or should I say Movember?

The Ducks will be shaving their faces clean tomorrow evening in Washington, D.C., in anticipation of playing the Capitals on Tuesday evening.  Chances are good that the Capitals, who are off to a strong start, are going to have fun trying to dominate the clean-shaven Duckies.  

While it is certain that by the end of the road trip George Parros will have hair residing on his upper lip once again, and Corey Perry will have nothing but peach fuzz, it is not nearly as certain if the Ducks will have more points in their standings. 

Maybe when the calendar turns, so will the Ducks fortunes on the road. 



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It was supposed to be a chance for redemption.  Instead, a rematch of the first round playoff series between the Anaheim Ducks and the Nashville Predators ended up the same way it did last spring.  The Predators came out on top.

Right from the first puck drop, the Predators came at the Ducks with a vengeance.  When they scored on the very first shift, just :14 seconds in, you knew it was going to be a long night. 

Patric Hornqvist got the first goal, building on his reputation as a Ducks killer.  Hornqvist, who has struggled this season, had no struggles this evening and probably wishes that they could play Anaheim every night.

Anaheim is probably grateful they only meet three more times this year.

Nashville made it 2-0 to make a nice neat bookend to the first period with a goal from Martin Erat at 18:59, his first of the year. 

In between, the Ducks did not do much of anything exciting, with the exception being Francois Beauchemin's mid ice hit on Mike Fisher.  Fisher, also known as Mr. Underwood, was left dazed and confused and not nearly as healthy as when he started the game.  When he finally left the ice, he did not come back and it was announced that he had the clear and concise "upper body injury" ailment that plagues so many players. 

Kevin Klein took exception to the hit and got a double major for roughing.  Beauchemin got a penalty for roughing, as well as an "illegal check to the head." 

Sheriff Brendan Shanahan will definitely be reviewing the play.  Given his proclivities towards justice, the chances are pretty decent that Beauchemin might get to take a seat beyond the penalty box to pay for his sins.  If so, he will have some company with J.F. Jacques, who was recalled once again to take care of game four of his five-game suspension, handed down by the same said sheriff during the pre-season.

The Ducks played much better in the second period, but nothing was getting past Pekke Rinne.  The power play that served Anaheim so well in their last game against the Wild was apparently left behind in Minnesota. 

Nashville was happy to convert on an early power play in the third period, though.  Shea Weber made it 3-0 at 2:14, pretty much sealing the win for the Predators, who were consistent all night long. 

The Ducks were consistently impotent against Nashville, yielding the shut out to Rinne and tucking their tails between their legs on the way to Columbus, where they get to see if they can get a different result in the second of back to back games.  

Fortunately, the Ducks will be able to quickly put this game behind them and move on.   Columbus has one win thus far out of 11 games.  The Ducks need to make sure they do not take them for granted and bring their "A" game.  The one they should have brought against Nashville.

While you need depth to make it through a long season, you also need your top guys to perform like your top guys.  The Ducks got their money's worth from their top forwards in a 3-2 win against the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. 

The win, which gave the Ducks three out of four points on their road trip thus far, came in a building they have had difficulties in.  While not quite as bad as the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, it had still been nearly two years since they had a win in Minnesota. 

Figuring out their power play certainly helped. 

Their first goal came at 8:47 of the first period, with Corey Perry putting the puck behind Niklas Backstrom on their very first power play opportunity. 

"We scored," said Perry.  "It is improving, but we still have some work to do.  We were moving it crisply. We were snapping it around. We worked on that in practice -- everybody touching the puck, everybody moving around and playing different positions.  Anybody can play anywhere, and it is that complete level to create the second chances. I thought we did a good job of that tonight."

Minnesota nearly tied up the game, just seconds before the period ended, but Jonas Hiller was able to deflect the shot off his shoulder and it narrowly veered away from the net.

Early in the second period, Minnesota nearly helped the Ducks go ahead by two.  Jared Spurgeon almost put the puck in his own net, but Backstrom was alert and made a nice stop.  

The Ducks were able to get their second goal on their own thanks to Bobby Ryan at 7:01.  Teemu Selanne got the assist, as he did with all three Ducks goals. 

By the end of the second period, Spurgeon figured out which net was his and he brought the Wild back within one goal at 13:07.   As in the first period, they nearly tied up the game in the waning seconds of the period, but close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes. 

The Ducks quickly took back a two goal lead in the third period, wasting no time on the power play.  The player was in the penalty box and :18 seconds later, the puck was in the Minnesota net.  Ryan Getzlaf made an easy tap in of Selanne's shot at 3:58.  It would turn out to be the game winner. 

"Teemu's been doing the same things for a lot of years, and luckily we've been together for a long time," Getzlaf stated. "We kind of have that awareness with each other about where we're going to be and those things help a lot when you're out there on the power play."

Selanne looks like he could be doing it for a lot more years, too, despite his birth certificate claiming that he is 41.

Matt Cullen, a former Duck and Minnesota native, tipped in Mikko Koivu's shot on the power play at 13:54 to make things nervewracking for the final minutes of the game.  Two successive Minnesota penalties slowed down their efforts and ability to tie up the game. 

The Ducks and Hiller hung on for the regulation win and now head off to Nashville for a rematch of the playoffs this past spring and hopefully two more points.

IN OTHER NOTES:  Devante Smith-Pelly spent the second game in a row as a scratch due to the stomach flu.  Both Patrick Maroon and J.F. Jacques were sent back to Syracuse to play in Friday evening's game there.  It is highly likely that Saturday morning they will get on yet another plane and return to the Ducks for the back to back games against Nashville and Columbus.  Those two games will be the final games of Jacques NHL suspension.

He's up.  He's down.  He's up again.  No, wait, he's down. 

Such is the life of J. F. Jacques these days. 

After being handed a five game suspension in the pre-season, the Ducks handed Jacques his first plane ticket to Syracuse, where he has spent the past month. 

However, the Ducks are now playing yo-yo with Jacques in a clever way of burning off the NHL suspension while giving him playing time in the AHL.

Jacques was recalled to Anaheim early Sunday morning, which meant that game one of the suspension was served that evening.  Game two was served when the Ducks played Chicago on Tuesday. 

Did you check the Crunch schedule? 

Jacques was then sent back to Syracuse, where he played on Wednesday night.  He scored twice in the 7-0 victory.

Did you check the Ducks schedule?  Guess who has been recalled, again? 

Jacques will serve game three of his suspension with the Ducks while they play Minnesota this evening. 

He better not unpack his carry-on bag, because the chances are real good he will be back in Syracuse playing again before rejoining the Ducks on their seven game road trip to finish off the suspension.  At least the mileage is less between Syracuse and the midwest, but if he does not know the airport personnel and flight attendants by now, he sure will when he is finished!