Voros to Toronto; Ducks Continue to Carry Nine D-Men

Bob Murray and Brian Burke are at it again. Aaron Voros is the newest former Duck to don the Maple Leaf. There really isn’t much to say about this trade, as Voros only played 12 games as a Duck, due to a combination of injuries and healthy scratches, not to mention he was a fourth liner at best on a team claiming it wants to roll three scoring lines.

All in all, it’s a fine trade for everyone. Voros will likely get back into the NHL after having been demoted to Syracuse Wednesday; Toronto gets a truculent body to stick in their lineup, and the Ducks get a seventh round draft pick that they can hope turns into Henrik Zetterberg.

Yesterday I said that the Ducks would have to make a move before the deadline, but this wasn’t the one I was thinking of. Dumping a forward that was already in Syracuse does nothing to address the glut of defensemen that the Ducks have on hand at the moment. The Ducks still have nine defensemen on the roster and have been dressing seven per game since Francois Beauchamin came aboard.

Clearly, Lubo Visnovski, Toni Lydman, Cam Fowler and Beauch aren’t going anywhere. That leaves the hammer to fall on free agent disappointment Andy Sutton , Luca Sbisa — the remaining piece of the Pronger trade — penalty killer and shot blocker extraordinaire Andreas Lilja, Sheldon Brookbank — the only defenseman left from last season’s roster — or Fowler’s former mentor and frequent healthy scratch Paul Mara.

In my mind Brookbank and/or Mara has to go. They have each played only one game since December 18, which simultaneously makes them expendable and very difficult to move.

Sutton would be the next least valuable to the Ducks as of this moment, but he comes with a bit of a big ticket, $2.1 million cap hit with a year left on his contract. And as Eric Stephens pointed out the Beauchamin trade may have been an admission that Sutton hasn’t panned out the way Murray had hoped. One would have to think that trading Sutton away after acquiring Beauch would be more palatable to Murray and the Samuelis than sticking $2 million in the press box for the rest of the season.

Lilja and Sbisa are definitely the two most attractive assets (that may be had) to other teams, but with the Ducks pushing for a solid playoff run, signaled by the Beauchamin deal, any trade involving one of those two would have to bring in a juicy return, and hopefully come from an Eastern Conference team (not Toronto).

Murray could burry Mara, Brookbank or Sbisa (due to his age) in Syracuse and leave the option of bringing one of them up as needed for say an injury, but they can’t keep all these blue liners around forever. Can they?

Ducks Roster Moves

You can’t blame Randy Carlyle and Bob Murray for wanting to stick with something that is working.

The Ducks are currently among the hotter teams in the league.  Their five game winning streak is tied with the Kings for second longest running streak in the league behind Washington’s six.  Matt Beleskey and Dan Sexton were set to return to the lineup, but Murray got a case of the If-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-its and sent them to Syracuse in favor of keeping Nick Bonino and Kyle Palmieri.

However, Murray wasn’t just satisfied with the status quo.  He sent down Danny Syvret, who had been scratched since Cam Fowler came back from his broken nose, and brought Luca Sbisa back.  Sbisa played well against the Islanders Wednesday night, showing Ducks fans the physical side of his game that we’ve heard so much about after a summer with Sean Skahan, the Ducks’ strength and conditioning coach. 

Next on Murray’s to do list is to figure out who stays and who goes as Andy Sutton returns from his broken hand, suffered in a game one scrap with Ruslan Salei.  On Duck Calls, after Tuesday’s overtime win in San Jose,  Sutton told Josh Brewster that he expects to be fully cleared to play next week.  One can assume Lubo Visnovski, Toni Lydman and Fowler are safe, which leaves Sbisa, Sheldon Brookbank, Andreas Lilja and Paul Mara on the chopping block.  There is always the option of reassigning Troy Bodie, who has been a healthy scratch since the New Jersey game, or carrying 23 and scratching two defensemen, still one of the current top six D-men will have to make way for Sutton on the ice.

Brookbank missed Wednesday’s game in favor of Sbisa, due to a lower body injury suffered Tuesday.  Sbisa seems to have earned a look after a stint in The A.  Mara has been good in his role as a mentor/defensive a safety net for Cam Fowler, but that role could be filled by Sutton as well.  Then there is Lilja, whose signing seemed a hasty reaction to losing a veteran presence on the blueline when Sutton went out. 

It seems to me that the move that crates the least amount of shuffling during a high point of the season is to send Bodie back to Syracuse, scratch Lilja, play Sutton with Sbisa and leave the other pairings alone.  That would leave three balanced pairs of defensemen, each with a puck mover and a stay-at-home guy:  Lubo/Lydman, Sbisa/Sutton, Fowler/Mara with Brookbank and Lilja scratched.  There’s no true number one defenseman there but that seems like a corps that could get the job done, the way they have in the past five games.

Of course the real difficulty comes in a month or so when Joffrey Lupul is ready to come back, but that’s a blog for another day. 

Tonight’s game against Dallas should be a lot of fun judging from the Stars game in LA last night.  I actually have high hopes for the Ducks tonight as the Stars should be tired, have lost two in a row, and were on the wrong end of the Ducks only runaway of the season so far, but that could easily come back to bite the Ducks hard if they think in those terms.

Weekend Roundup

Despite being a 5-4 final, Friday night’s shootout loss to Atlanta was less than exciting.  With the arena less than half filled, knowing very few of the Atlanta players, and a slow trap-filled Atlanta pace it was a hard game to get involved in as a fan; almost like turning the clock back to the preseason.

One thing that I did notice from Atlanta was Dustin Byfuglien.  First of all, playing him at defense, as has been noted in many media outlets, completely nullifies his annoying talents in front of the net.  More than that though, on one particular breakout he shocked me with some of the most casual skating I have ever seen. 

Sure, he was just following the forward carrying the puck out of the zone, it wasn’t the quickest pace and therefore wasn’t necessary for him to power up the ice, but he wasn’t even bending his knees. He was just gliding around the rink like it was a public skate. 

Regardless of the pace of the game the Ducks let one slip away on Friday.  As tough as it may be to lose a game with a lead going into the final five minutes of regulation, that type of game is something Ducks fans may need to get used to this season.  Scoring plenty of goals but giving up just as many was the preseason line on this team, and on this three game home stand they made the best of it twice.

Saturday, thanks to my girlfriend’s prowess in picking orange pucks, we had the opportunity to see the Ducks practice at Honda Center and meet backup goaltender extraordinaire Curtis McElhinney. 

The best thing about the event was the details.  Sitting right on the glass we were close enough to the action to see sweat dripping off of Joffrey Lupul’s nose as he skated with an unidentified man in Ducks sweats, who may or may not have been injured Syracuse Crunch Duck forward Jason Jaffray. 

One fun fact that we learned from the up close and personal seats was that Jason Blake uses about a roll and a half of tape on each shin pad.  Also George Parros straps his jersey down even in practice.  We assumed this was just out of habit, but a couple of playful scraps did break out.  The unlikely combatants were Saku Koivu vs. Ryan Carter and Ryan Getzlaf vs. Sheldon Brookbank, of all people. 

There was some concern among the die-hards at the practice when Corey Perry left about halfway through the session.  Luckily it was nothing serious as Eric Stephens reported later that day for the OC Register, Perry skipped the rest of the practice after colliding with Getzlaf and bruising his butt.

It was especially good news, that Perry wasn’t seriously hurt as he turned out to be the first star of the game one Sunday with the game winning goal and an assist. 

The top line was dominant in both games over the weekend which opened up some space for production from the back end.  Toni Lydman had a goal in each of his first two games as a Duck.  A pleasant surprise from someone who hadn’t played since April and was only expected to provide a veteran defensive presence.

The big story of Sunday’s game though was Cam Fowler.  The kid had a heck of a second period, even if it only lasted nine minutes for him.  He opened the scoring for the Ducks with his first NHL goal, which seemed to give him some extra confidence on the offensive side of the puck.

He had another grade A opportunity just seconds later on a one timer that sailed over the crossbar, and took an end to end rush cleanly beating two or three Phoenix defenders with some slick moves before getting taking a header into the end boards. 

Fowler’s nose was bloodied and he did not return for the remainder of the game, but the extent of his injury still could be anything from a simple cut to a broken nose to a concussion. 

Bobby Ryan reported via the OC Register that “Word is he’s OK,” but we’ll have to wait to see what team doctors say after medical evaluation today.

Weekend Round-Up

Lots of developments over the weekend, so let’s get right to it.

The Ducks’ roster currently stands at 25, with two more cuts to be made among the remaining forwards.  The defense is what it is right now.  Lubomir Visnovski, Andy Sutton, Sheldon Brookbank, Luca Sbisa, Paul Mara, Brendan Mikkelson and Cam Fowler will start the season as the Ducks defensive corps. 

Toni Lydman, who has been out of the lineup since before training camp with a mysterious case of double vision, took his first skate with the team on Friday morning.  There is still no time-table on his return but progress is progress. 

In the mean time Fowler has made the team and all signs point to him being in the lineup Thursday in Detroit, but he hasn’t stuck quite yet.  He could be the casualty of Lydman’s return as the Ducks can still send him back to junior without burning a year of his entry-level contract if he plays less than ten NHL games.