Ducks Beat Rangers 5-2

 

It was a great effort from just about everyone on the ice to beat the Rangers last night.  It was a slow start with Dan Ellis giving up a goal on the first shot of the game for the second time in as many games.  He made up for it, though with a sprawling save on Brandon Dubinsky that turned the play the other way for Bobby Ryan to score a great goal in the third period.

The best part of the victory was seeing how much the Ducks were going to the front of the net.  Whether it was driving the puck in off the walls, battling for rebounds or screening Henrik Lundqvist someone, especially Corey Perry, was almost always at the top of the crease. 

On the other side of the puck, the Rangers shocked me with their soft defense.  John Tortorella must not have been very happy when the game was over, because the Ducks walked right around and passed right through New York defensemen all night long.  Meanwhile, the Ducks’ physical presence came in the form of Luca Sbisa celebrating his new four year contract and 100th NHL game with a couple of crushing body checks.

I was unusually impressed with was Dan Sexton.  Over the course of this season I have been slowly but surely falling out of love with Big Sexy for one reason:  he never seems to be able to shoot the puck on net.  In this game he had some great forechecking shifts and a couple of shots right on Henrik Lundqvist, but just for good measure he had to throw in his patented streak in on the right wing and wrist one off the high glass from the top of the circles play. 

Yesterday I suggested that Koivu sit out one extra game to make sure the groin is completely healed, and apparently that extra game was Sunday’s tilt against Vancouver, because he looked fantastic.  There was one moment where he looked to be hopping over the boards somewhat gingerly, but it wasn’t evident in his play at all.  In fact he made my favorite play of the night, of which there seems to be no isolated highlight, where he flipped a nasty little saucer pass to Teemu in full stride at the faceoff dot.  The puck didn’t go in, but it was an exhibition of why those two work so well together. 

Another correction from yesterday, I said that the Ducks would make their way into the eight seed with a win over the Rangers, but that didn’t quite take into account the Kings beating the (good for nothing) Red Wings and a miscalculation of games played.  As such, the Ducks currently sit in tenth, two points behind Phoenix who holds down the final playoff spot.

As a parting shot, I guess I’ll weigh in on the Zdeno Chara hit on Max Pacioretty, even though it is the same as most other reasonable hockey people and the NHL.  It was a hockey play gone horribly, horribly wrong.  It was interference and unfortunately Pacioretty ended up face first in the glass between the benches, causing a severe concussion and a broken vertebra.  The way I see it, the NHL couldn’t suspend Chara any more than they could suspend Shane Doan for hitting Ryan Getzlaf in the face with a shot.  I’m not trivializing the injury at all, but the fact of the matter is that hockey is a very dangerous game and shit happens. 

Best wishes to Pacioretty on his recovery.

Red Wings, Lupul talk

It’s not hard to get fired up about a Ducks/Red Wings matchup, however I don’t think there is another team out there that can scare the crap out of a Ducks fan easier. Nervous excitement is what it’s about when Detroit comes to Honda Center, and today is no exception.

The Wings are on fire. The only team that has been able to create any kind of separation in the standings (three points ahead of Dallas, four ahead of Chicago), they’ve been holding down first place in the West for a few weeks and they show no sign of relenting any time soon. They ripped right through the Sharks on Tuesday with Datsyuk, Zetterberg and most impressively 40-year-old Nicklas Lidstrom playing right at the peak of their potential.

At one point against San Jose, Dany Heatley tried to chip the puck in, past Lidstrom and Nick batted it right out of mid-air at the blueline, back into the Sharks zone with all the nonchalance of ordering a bowl of soup. Also in that game Datsyuk showed what can happen if you relax for one second against this team, coming in one on two with back pressure he split the D, walked right around Nittimaki and roofed it from the goal line. Just another day at the office.

The Ducks almost pulled a victory out of the Joe the last time these two teams saw each other, however the time before that they were utterly embarrassed. The team has gotten better since those games, but they’ll have to put it all together tonight, or else.

Tonight is also the third game of Joffrey Lupul’s AHL conditioning assignment with the Syracuse Crunch, in Rochester. If necessary, the Ducks can extend his time in Syracuse two more games, but it’s possible that he could be back in time for Sunday’s game against Phoenix.

Last year, Lupul played the first twenty games of the season, missed seven with back spasms, then came back for three and hasn’t played since. He’s had back surgery and two blood infections in the intervening 12 months. The shocking part to me, at the time, was that in those three games he played before sitting out the rest of the year, he was out of control. He scored four goals and, if I remember correctly, looked very good doing it.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Lupul at his best, but this is still the guy who scored all four Ducks goals in a playoff game in 2006, including the overtime winner, and he says that he feels stronger than ever in this NHL.com article.

Joffrey Lupul is the key to Randy Carlyle’s “three scoring line” approach that has not worked out well so far this season. The question is, who will play with him?

One option is to just stick him on the third line with Dan Sexton and Nick Bonino, or Todd Marchant. However, I’d like to see either Sexton, Bonino or Marchant move up to the first line and spread out the scoring with a Lupul-Bobby Ryan combination on the third, and bam you actually may have three scoring lines — and maybe even a fourth line that could chip in on occasion. If things go sour during the game it also makes Carlyle’s line shuffling a lot easier, just reunite the RPG line. Also there may even be some chemistry between Bobby and Loops as they are guitar/twitter buddies.

As for the third member of that line, a commenter on Anaheim Calling, by the name of “mudhippy” made a funny, insightful and unfortunately impossible suggestion:

“What about Ryan Car—— oh wait.”

I would have loved to see a Lupul-Carter-Ryan line. In Bobby’s first full season, after coming up from Portland he started on the fourth line with Carter and George Parros, and it was surprisingly effective. Imagine that without the dead weight of Parros — I know, I know he scored two goals Wednesday, but come on that will never happen again. Alas, Ryan Carter is now a Carolina Hurricane, so the options are Marchant, Bonino or a return to the Bobby Ryan at center experiment.

That leaves Bobby’s position on the top line open for Brendan McMillan, Sexton, Marchant or Bonino. They’ve tried McMillan there a little bit, with some moderate success, but I’d like to see Big Sexy try to become the new Chris Kunitz. I saw that potential in him in training camp and preseason, when he was fighting for a roster spot, now he can put that determination to good use trying to stick on the first line. Marchant and Bonino are both natural centers so I think they fit better lower on the totem pole.

Marchant, is always a good choice. He’ll win a ton of faceoffs, he has the speed to keep up with real scorers and he’ll add a bit of backchecking credibility to the line. Putting him between two wingers that, when healthy will each put up at least 20 to 30 goals could seriously spark his season too, but then again that could go for anyone.

On the other handin college, Bonino showed an almost Getzlaf-esque game at times — non-captain Getzlaf, that is. We haven’t seen it in the NHL yet, but maybe with some proven wingers he could blossom at the top level.

Really, any way you slice it, Lupul coming back is good news, but we’ll just have to wait and see how he adjusts after missing a full season.

Ducks Strike Lightning in OT

Lots of good stuff to talk about in last night’s 2-1 Overtime win for the Ducks. 

First and foremost it was a win.  They almost let this one slip away with an early third period power play goal from Steven Stamkos, but they were able to fight back and find a way to win.  They always say that you learn more from a loss than you do from a victory and if that is true, the Ducks have learned a lot.  This kind of game is where you prove that you’ve learned those lessons.  Avoiding reckless and emotional penalties, sticking to their game plan and advancing in the face of some adversity is a real sign of improvement for this team, and finally the moral victory resulted in an actual victory as well.

Probably the most interesting thing about the game was the infusion of youth into the lineup from Syracuse.  Obviously the addition of Cam Fowler lowers the average age of the team significantly, but Kyle Palmieri and Nick Bonino and Josh Green were brought up from the AHL to replace injured forwards, Matt Beleskey, Dan Sexton and Kyle Chipchura.