Posts in category NHL

NHL fines Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf $10,000 for use of inappropriate remark

May 20, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM – The NHL on Saturday fined Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf $10,000 for the use of what it called an inappropriate remark Thursday night during Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against Nashville.

The fine is the maximum amount allowable under the terms of the joint collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ union. Getzlaf’s comment was deemed a violation of the NHL’s policy “which prohibits inappropriate and offensive remarks, and the use of obscene, profane or abusive
language or gestures in the game.”

TSN reporter Frank Seravalli first reported that Getzlaf used a homophobic slur. The incident, according to a video on the hockeyfeed.com website, appeared after Nate Thompson was checked from behind by Nashville’s Austin Watson. Getzlaf yelled at referee Kelly Sutherland afterward as he skated behind him.

The center then yelled the slur to his intended target when he got back to the Ducks bench. It isn’t clear in the video if that was also directed at Sutherland.

“Getzlaf’s comment in Thursday’s game, particularly as directed to another individual on the ice, was inappropriately demeaning and disrespectful, and crossed the line into behavior that we deem unacceptable,” Colin Campbell, the NHL’s senior vice president of hockey operations, said in a statement. “The type of language chosen and utilized in this instance will not be tolerated in the National Hockey League.”

The fine will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund. Getzlaf, a leading candidate in the Conn Smythe Trophy discussion as the playoffs’ most valuable player, has been captain of the Ducks since 2010 when he succeeded the retired Scott Niedermayer.

The Ducks and Predators are scheduled to play Game 5 at Honda Center on Saturday night.

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Whicker: Ducks’ Cam Fowler, a defenseman in full

May 19, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM — When he first got here, Cam Fowler moved in with Scott Niedermayer and family.

There are trophies in that house. Seven years later Fowler is putting together his own mantelpiece.

On Thursday, Fowler played more than 28 minutes in the Game 4 overtime survival test at Nashville, the one that tied the Western Conference finals, 2-2, with Game 5 on Saturday at Honda Center. He has topped 30 minutes twice and he averages 26:43. That would be second in the NHL to Erik Karlsson if Fowler, who missed the first series, had played enough to qualify. Fowler is also playing a team-high 51 seconds per shift.

He is out there dancing with stars every night. He is on the penalty kill and the power play. He is running the game now, which was Niedermayer’s role in four Stanley Cup seasons.

It’s not a fair comparison yet. But it does dampen the assumption that the Ducks lack the elite defenseman required to play for another Cup.

Each champion, they say, has to have a True One, whether it’s Duncan Keith or Drew Doughty or Nicklas Lidstrom.

But sometimes that title is bestowed in retrospect, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pittsburgh’s Chris Letang was the defensive star of last year’s Stanley Cup run. He has missed this entire postseason and the Penguins are back in the Eastern Conference finals.

You can calculate the chicken-egg factor all you want. The point is that Fowler has done a lot of hard miles to get here.

He was thrust into the lineup at 18 years ago, in Randy Carlyle’s first team. He played under the sword of tough plus-minus numbers. He became tentative at times. Perhaps the trade rumors had an effect, as well as the return of the coach who first believed in him.

This was the season Fowler made the All-Star Game and scored a career-high 11 goals. He is 25, with a lot of ice time left.

“He (Niedermayer) always told me to be confident, to trust my skating,” Fowler said Friday. “It always starts with me being assertive with the puck, not having to think as much. Push the puck at both ends.

“You tell yourself you belong in that role, with big minutes, playing in all situations. You just need to play the same night in and night out.”

In Game 4, Fowler wound up with the puck after a turnover, just inside his blue line. His instinctive thought was to retreat behind his net and get his team aligned. But the Predators were trying to change lines without getting the puck deep enough. Fowler looked up and saw Rickard Rakell, lonesome as Hank Williams, standing on Nashville’s blue line.

“That’s a pretty easy play for a defenseman, finding a teammate all alone,” Fowler said. “He did the rest of it. He shot it across his body without a screen (in front of goalie Pekka Rinne). That’s tough to do.”

It gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead and solidified perhaps their best first period of the postseason.

Fowler was one of the highest-rated players in junior hockey. He had scored 55 points in 55 games for the Windsor Spitfires, who won 50 of 68 games. Ryan Ellis, Nashville’s impressive defenseman, was on that team, playing with Fowler on power plays, and so were Nashville’s Austin Watson and New Jersey’s Taylor Hall and Adam Henrique. Hall was the first-overall pick, by Edmonton.

The Ducks, picking 12th in the 2010 draft at Staples Center, didn’t concern themselves with Fowler. The picks kept coming and Fowler kept sitting in the stands. When Dallas chose goalie Jack Campbell, who is now in the Kings’ organization, the Ducks struck.

“We never dreamed he’d be there but he has not disappointed,” Carlyle said.

The No. 4 pick in that draft was Ryan Johansen. Columbus eventually dealt him to Nashville for Seth Jones.

Johansen is Nashville’s first-line center and has been a significant thorn for the Ducks, especially in the final minute of regulation of Game 4 when he cross-checked Josh Manson into the boards. That removed Manson from the spot he would have occupied, and Filip Forsberg got into that space and tied the score.

The Ducks, who had been herded into the box throughout the period, were furious, but managed to win, 3-2, in OT.

Then Johansen spent Thursday night in Vanderbilt Hospital with thigh surgery that will remove him from the postseason. Flowers from the Ducks are not forthcoming, at least not now.

Niedermayer? He’s still around. He spent most of the season in San Diego, working with young defensemen on the Ducks’ AHL team. His former guest has made his own room, and his board, too.

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Whicker: Ducks-Predators Game 1, the morning after

May 13, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM — Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, the morning after:

— There is no more sickening feeling than to flip a puck over the boards and see the referee stick his arm up in the air, as the opposing team points excitedly to the seats. It’s an automatic delay of game, not open to interpretation the way everything else is. The Ducks suffered back-to-back puck-flip penalties on Ryan Getzlaf and Nate Thompson in the third period Friday night, creating a 5-on-3 for Nashville for 1:29. The Ducks killed them off and used it as fuel for a fine third period generally, but many people in the hockey world buried their foreheads. It’s a wildly unpopular penalty.

— “I’m a traditonalist,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said, “and it’s a real tough penalty. My personal preference is that it isn’t called during the game. It puts too much pressure in those situations.”

— It’s particularly difficult when it happens on dubious ice, with pucks that bounce and are being handled by players who are under duress. Thompson was trying to advance the puck off the boards and Nashville defenseman Matias Ekholm had his stick between Thompson’s legs at the time.

— It took almost no time for the Ducks and Predators to express their distaste for each other. The Ducks’ Jared Boll shouldered Nashville’s Calle Jamkrok right in the chops, without a call, and Ryan Getzlaf sent Victor Arvidsson face-frirst into the boards and didn’t get a boarding whistle. The hit that will be examined by the Ducks was James Neal’s, which put Brandon Montour into the boards in overtime.

— The Ducks were allowing power-play units to score on them at a 31 percent clip in the playoffs. They looked more like the fourth-best penalty killers in the league, which they were in the regular season. Nashville had 8:33 of advantage time and came up empty. “I think both teams wish they could have done more on their power play,” said the Predators’ Filip Forsberg, “but the penalty kill didn’t give them much.”

— Nashville kept the Ducks’ power play unit muffled, too, going 0 for 4 in eight minutes. One power play in the first period was so futile that the Honda Center crowd started booing. The Predators picked up the Ducks at the blue line and rarely let them set up.

— This one cannot be laid at the feet of John Gibson, who stopped 43 of 46 Nashville shots and all 11 on power plays. None of the Predators’ goals got past Gibson without some extenuating circumstances, whether it was a deflection by Forsberg, a shot by Austin Watson that bounced off Sami Vatanen’s backside and past Gibson, or Neal’s final shot that Gibson tried to stop without a stick. The puck glanced off Corey Perry, who was directly in front of Gibson and didn’t have a stick either. It happened because the Predators won a couple of puck battles and P.K. Subban wound up for a point shot, then slid the puck over to Neal, who has one of the best one-time shots in the game.

— The Predators figured to be a sterner challenge in faceoffs than Edmonton was, but the Ducks won that department, 40-31.

— Although Gibson’s statistics haven’t been that gaudy in the playoffs, it is noteworthy that his save percentage in 5-on-5 situations was .938 going into Game 1.

— Subban and Ekholm were an outstanding defensive pair in this game, but neither was on the ice as much as Cam Fowler (31:22). After the first period, the Ducks’ young defenders were solid. During the first period? “I thought we were inept,” Carlyle said. “We weren’t moving our feet.”

— Nashville is 4-0 in playoff overtimes over the past two years and is 6-2 in Honda Center playoff games.

— The Predators sent 77 shots Gibson’s way, if you count shots on goals, missed shots and blocks.

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Ducks Notes: GM Bob Murray doesn’t feel vindicated after re-hiring Randy Carlyle

May 11, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM — When General Manager Bob Murray re-hired Randy Carlyle last June 14 to replace the recently fired Bruce Boudreau as the Ducks’ coach, all of Duckdom seemed to react with a loud and extended chorus of boos on social media and elsewhere.

“Are we getting back together with an old girlfriend?”

“Are we going to play boring dump-and-chase hockey?”

“Who are we trying to be, the Kings?”

Dire predictions of a disaster on the ice never materialized, though. Carlyle pushed all the right buttons at all the right times and the Ducks won their fifth consecutive Pacific Division championship before defeating the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

Now, the Ducks are halfway to winning a second Stanley Cup title with Carlyle as coach.

Murray resisted the urge to gloat and say, “I told you so,” when given a chance Thursday, one day before the Ducks play host to the Nashville Predators in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Friday at Honda Center. Murray wouldn’t say he felt vindicated.

“I don’t look at it that way,” he said.

Instead, Murray praised Carlyle and the players for propelling the Ducks to their second conference finals in three seasons. Murray was especially impressed with the Ducks’ determination in their Game 7 victory Wednesday over the Oilers, when they rallied from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1.

“This group has learned, and you’ve got to give them all the credit in the world,” Murray said.

Carlyle’s in-game adjustments have paid dividends so far in the playoffs, but particularly during the series against the Oilers, a marked difference from Boudreau’s tenure, which ended last spring after a fourth Game 7 loss at Honda Center in as many seasons.

Carlyle shifted Jakob Silfverberg onto the Ducks’ top line with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, and Silfverberg scored the winner in overtime in Game 4. Carlyle then slotted Nick Ritchie onto the Getzlaf-Perry line late in Game 7, and Ritchie scored the game-winner in the third period.

“Well, as I said when we hired Randy, we always knew that Randy is an excellent bench coach and I think throughout the series, I think him and Todd (McLellan, the Oilers’ coach,) had a great duel of bench coaches. They both made adjustments, tired to make adjustments.

“I think Randy did a heck of a job.”

BIEKSA, EAVES IMPROVE

Kevin Bieksa is “very close, very, very close,” Murray said of the veteran defenseman’s possible return to the lineup from a lower-body injury. Bieksa has skated with the Ducks the last few days, but didn’t play in their victory Wednesday in Game 7 against the Oilers.

Patrick Eaves walked around the Ducks’ dressing room without the aid of crutches, according to Murray and joined his teammates for an off-ice workout. Eaves has sat out the past four games because of an injured left leg and had been using crutches.

“He’s a ways away yet, but the therapy he’s doing and the people he’s working with, it’s coming along,” Murray said. “I have hope. For a while, I just thought that was it. But I have hope now that we’re going to see him again at some point (in the playoffs).”

WINNING BUT LOSING

The Ducks suffered a key loss by advancing to the conference finals. They acquired Eaves from the Dallas Stars for a conditional second-round draft pick in February, but the pick became a first-round selection when the Ducks advanced to the conference finals and Eaves played in half their games.

Murray said it was worthwhile to pay the price in the form of a first-round pick to acquire Eaves, who had 11 goals in 20 regular-season games and two more in seven postseason contests before he was injured. Eaves is eligible to become an unrestricted free agent July 1.

“Patrick has a huge effect on the organization,” Murray said.

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Miller: Game 6 ends just in time for Ducks to tempt Game 7 fate

May 10, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM – For the Ducks, there was one good thing about their otherwise rancid Game 6 on Sunday in Edmonton:

It ended.

OK, two good things:

It didn’t clear customs.

“It doesn’t matter how big you win,” Ducks forward Ryan Kesler said Wednesday in advance of Game 7 back here. “The (next) game starts 0-0. You don’t get a lead if you blow a team out.”

That’s correct. Thankfully for the Ducks, this is hockey and not mathematics. In hockey, you never carry the remainder.

So they were permitted to resume their second-round series against the Oilers on equal footing, despite finishing Game 6 in a much different posture – on their fannies, smoked like a salmon.

“It doesn’t take rocket science,” Coach Randy Carlyle said after his team’s morning skate, “to figure out we have to have a much better start.”

Figuring out that the Ducks need a much better finish doesn’t require an advanced degree in anything more sophisticated than common sense, either.

As you might have heard by now, the Ducks have been unsuccessful in recent Game 7s.

Yeah, unsuccessful, like the McDonald’s Arch Deluxe. Google it, young people.

Entering Wednesday, the Ducks had dropped Game 7 at Honda Center to end – with the thud of a cadaver – every postseason since 2013.

For a moment here, let’s ponder the stunning unlikeliness of this situation. What would be the odds of any team in any era at any level in any sport doing this four years in a row?

And, then, what would be the odds of that same team doing it again a fifth consecutive year?

The answer is there are no such odds because even the long-shot-loving people in Las Vegas would consider four or five straight Game 7 losses at home to be too ridiculous to ever actually occur.

Vegas loves selling the notion that anything is possible, true. But the most wild of imaginations can cavort only so far before being reeled in by reality.

“To be honest, that’s years ago,” said Kesler, a Duck for the Game 7 losses in ’15 and ’16. “It happened last year. It happened the year before. There’s nothing we can do about the past experience except to learn from it.”

In that case, some of these Ducks should have doctorates in how not to play these loser-take-none contests. When it comes to do or die, the only thing the Ducks do is die.

Still, just four players had been here for all the recent Game 7 defeats. That should be encouraging, right?

The problem is two of them are Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, the team’s two acknowledged leaders.

And, if we’ve learned anything about this team the past few weeks, it’s that the rest of the Ducks will follow Getzlaf’s lead, for better or worse.

Fittingly, during this sour stretch, the Ducks have faced a different Game 7 opponent each time. This means, of course, that they haven’t developed a nemesis but instead a storyline that correctly paints them as their own worst enemy.

The Ducks have no one to blame for this mess but themselves, this latest waltz with disaster made necessary because of that dreadful no-show in Game 6, a 7-1 drubbing.

“Your team can’t be second out of the blocks,” Carlyle said. “It’s like a sprint. If you’re a sprinter, you want to make sure you get a good start. That’s exactly the way we’ll approach it.”

Before this game, the Ducks franchise hadn’t won a Game 7 since 2006. Not to make this more painful than it already is or anything, but the Kings won three Game 7s in the 2014 postseason alone.

One of those came over the Ducks in a game that wasn’t even as close as the 6-2 warped final suggests.

Entering Wednesday, in fact, the Ducks had never led for as many as one of the 240 Game 7 minutes they’d played since 2013.

“Game 7 you want to do so much,” defenseman Cam Fowler said. “You want to help your team any way you can that sometimes you end up doing a little too much.”

And too much also isn’t enough, not when Game 7s pack so much emotion and so many opportunities to make colossal, season-crushing, reputation-ruining mistakes.

But, hey, there’s one more bit of good news for the Ducks as it relates to Game 6. Joining the excess goals in not carrying over is the momentum, a fact these two teams have proven repeatedly.

And not only in this series, which has had whiplash-inducing mood swings. In the opening round, the Oilers lost Game 4 to San Jose, 7-0, and still won the next two to take the series.

“If anybody can predict the momentum flows that have taken place in this series,” Carlyle said, “you’re a lot smarter than a lot of so-called hockey people.”

A lot smarter and a lot more fortunate, the so-called hockey people with the Ducks the ones haunted by these Game 7 ghosts.

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Whicker: The light, red or otherwise, is trained on Gibson

May 9, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM — Contrary to what Leon Draisaitl must think, the Ducks do have goaltenders.

In fact, goalies have often been the pride of the franchise. Jean-Sebastien Giguere was the Conn Smythe Award winner, the playoff MVP, after the Ducks lost a Stanley Cup Final to New Jersey. Guy Hebert was often the best player for the inaugural club in 1993-94.

Ilya Bryzgalov won a Game 7 in Calgary, with a first-round shutout 11 seasons ago. No Duck has done it since.

Wednesday night, the Ducks reach for that history. They ask John Gibson to stand in front of the battalion and absorb all the bullets, without rebounds.

Ducks’ goalies are letting in 3.20 goals per game in the playoffs, worst of any of the eight surviving teams, and their save percentage is .902, tied with Washington for worst among the conference semifinalists.

In Edmonton on Sunday, Randy Carlyle parked Gibson after three Oilers goals in six shots. That set up Game 7, the stage for deadly sins the past four years.

This one, like the others, will happen in front of an increasingly discourageable crowd at Honda Center. Those who can’t bear to watch don’t have to. If they hear any “Let’s Go Oilers” chants in an otherwise sullen building, they’ll know it is happening again.

The Game 7s have often been laid on Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, but the Ducks were out-goaltended in all four games. They also gave up the first goal in all four games, sometimes many more than that.

Last year, Freddie Andersen was pretty good but Nashville’s Pekka Rinne was spectacular. Two years ago, Andersen, now in Toronto, was jittery in a 5-3 loss to Chicago.

He was hurt in 2014 when the Kings dominated the Ducks, 6-2, as Gibson started and Jonas Hiller finished, and Jonathan Quick played typically, at least when tested. Detroit began all this in 2013 when Jimmy Howard got the better of Hiller.

The goalies didn’t get the L’s by themselves. Defensive blunders and offensive anxiety contributed. But the Ducks need to play confidently, and they can’t unless the goalie gives them reason to.

First-year goalie coach Sudarshan Maharaj met with Gibson on Tuesday morning.

“You reiterate the core things that you’ve put in place all season,” Maharaj said. “We looked at a series of clips. We said, this is technically how we’ll adjust. John has a set routine. He’s confident in it. He likes to see it, deal with it and move on very quickly.”

The Ducks have much to prove here. The series is tied 3-3, but it’s hard to say the Oilers haven’t been better. The Ducks led Game 4 for 23:51, they led Game 5 only when Corey Perry cut past Draisaitl and scored on Cam Talbot in the second overtime, and they of course did not lead Game 6 at all.

All three of their comeback goals in Game 5 came on 6-on-5 situations, with Gibson pulled, so they have only two even-strength goals in the past two games. They haven’t scored on a 5-on-4 power play since Game 2.

Connor McDavid was not one of the 12 Edmonton skaters, out of 18, who scored at least one point Sunday. That fact is sort of like a hailstorm on April. Not likely to happen twice in a week.

It also might seem strange to mention the enormity of the vaunted First Goal, considering how often the Ducks have stormed back from two and three goals down. But Game 7s are different. In the past 16, the team that scored first won 13 times.

So, as simple as it sounds, it’s up to Gibson. The Ducks made three mistakes early Sunday and all three wound up in Gibson’s net, through the five-hole.

“For John, it’s a learn-and-move-on situation, not a reset,” Maharaj said. “The first goal he gave up, I’d equate it to a baseball player facing a fastballer, and then he gets a changeup. It looked absolutely horrible. But it probably should happen more often than it does.

“This is where experience comes in. John might be 23, but he has a lot of experience. He won an under-17 gold medal. He won an under-18 gold medal. He won a World Juniors gold medal. He won a bronze medal in the World Championshps when he was 20. Those games gave him a lot of practice dealing with the pressure situations. So you don’t want to overcoach. It’s relaxation and focus.”

Like everything else in the playoffs, it’s easier said than won.

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Ducks focused on Game 6 after ‘Comeback on Katella’ OT win in Game 5

May 6, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM – If it looked as if Andrew Cogliano hadn’t slept, it was only because he hadn’t.

Not a wink.

Cogliano and the rest of the Ducks arrived Saturday morning at Honda Center as if in a dream-like state, shuffling along slowly with bleary eyes and hands firmly grasping coffee cups as they reconvened for a bus ride to their chartered flight to Edmonton for Sunday’s Game 6 of their second-round series.

“Surreal,” Cogliano said of “The Comeback on Katella,” the Ducks’ dramatic rally that turned a three-goal deficit with a little more than three minutes to play into a 4-3 double-overtime victory that gave them a 3-2 lead over the Oilers in the best-of-7 series.

“It’s over now,” Cogliano said.

Now, it’s closing time.

Now, the Ducks have a chance Sunday to eliminate the Oilers and advance to the Western Conference finals for the second time in three seasons. Now, they can use the momentum and confidence they generated with their miraculous Game 5 victory as a springboard to the next round.

History isn’t on the Ducks’ side, though.

Game 6s have been every bit as troublesome as Game 7s for the Ducks in recent seasons. They have squandered 3-2 series leads four times in five series dating to a first-round loss to the Detroit Red Wings in 2013. The Ducks’ lone Game 6 victory was in the opening round over the Dallas Stars in ’14.

The Ducks’ Game 7 defeats to the Red Wings, Kings, Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators are headline-grabbers, and the stuff of nightmares for veterans such as Cogliano. But the Ducks’ Game 7 failures couldn’t have happened without Game 6 defeats.

Have the Ducks’ learned their lessons from past failures?

There are plenty of reasons to believe so, starting with the play of Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf, who started their comeback with a goal and finished it with an assist on Corey Perry’s game-winner 6 minutes, 57 seconds into the second sudden-death OT period.

Getzlaf has been an uncontrollable monster, with eight goals and 15 points in nine playoff games. The Ducks have followed their leader, who has five goals and 10 points in five games against the overmatched but determined Oilers.

“This is an opportunity for us to take the next step,” Cogliano said. “It’s not going to be easy.”

Edmonton is certain to be in a sour mood for Game 6 after melting down Friday in the closing minutes of Game 5. The Oilers were upset after the Ducks became the first NHL team to win a playoff game after scoring three times in the final four minutes to force OT.

Rickard Rakell’s tying goal, with 15 seconds left in the third period, infuriated the Oilers, who believed goaltender Cam Talbot was interfered with and the goal should not have counted. But a video review concluded the Ducks’ Ryan Kesler was pushed into the goalie by the Oilers’ Darnell Nurse.
TV replays available to reporters in the press box also indicated that to be the case.

The Ducks shrugged and went about their business Saturday, content to put the past in the past.

“Get a good start, get a good start, that’s the key,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said, repeating himself for emphasis. “Don’t get intimidated by what’s going to go on, because there’s going to be lots of emotion, lots of fired-up people and they’ll be trying to feed off that.

“That’s natural in a home building.”

So far, the Ducks have been the champions of Alberta, winning two games in Calgary during their first-round sweep of the Flames and then taking Games 3 and 4 against the Oilers in Edmonton’s Rogers Place after losing the first two at Honda Center.

The Ducks are far from satisfied.

They understand they’ve accomplished little so far.

“We’re going to take the attitude that we have to better than we were last night,” Carlyle said. “It’s not like we played poorly last night. We had a poor period (in giving up three goals in the second), and that seems to be our nemesis right now.

“The last couple of games we’ve had 20 minutes that we’re not really proud of. The first 20 we were pretty good, but we didn’t put a crack in the armor and they scored two quick ones and then the third one and everything went flat. The building went flat. We went flat. We started to get frustrated.”

Slowly but certainly, the Ducks regrouped and pulled off a rally for the ages.

Now, it’s back to Edmonton.

Closing time is at hand.

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Oilers have matchup problem with Ducks’ Ryan Getzlaf

May 6, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM — The Edmonton Oilers have a serious matchup problem in their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Ducks. It’s the same one the Calgary Flames had against the Ducks in the first round, which ended in a four-game sweep.

The problem stands 6-foot-4, weighs 221 pounds and answers to the name of Ryan Getzlaf, the Ducks’ captain and top-line center. He’s been their most forceful player, their playoff leader with eight goals and 15 points after rallying them to a 4-3 double-overtime win in Game 5.

Calgary never discovered an answer.

Edmonton’s search continues Sunday in Game 6 at Rogers Place.

Coach Randy Carlyle laughed a cruel laugh when a reporter wondered several hours before Getzlaf put his stamp on the Ducks’ historic Game 5 comeback at Honda Center how he might shut down the 12-season veteran if he were facing off against him.

“You really think I’m going to answer that?” Carlyle asked, clearly relishing his advantage in the on-ice chess match with Oilers coach Todd McLellan but also with the out-of-town reporter. “I’ve said this before, but I’ve never said it to a media person: Beat it.”

McLellan has tried a little of everything short of kidnapping over the years in an attempt to slow down Getzlaf, first as coach of the San Jose Sharks and now with the Oilers the past two seasons. Getzlaf tormented McLellan as never before with two goals and two assists in Game 4.

The Oilers tried to attack Getzlaf with their speed.

Didn’t work.

They tried to hit him and muscle him.

Didn’t work either.

Getzlaf’s virtuoso performance, which included the first two-goal playoff game of his career, propelled the Ducks to a 4-3 OT win Wednesday in Edmonton that evened the best-of-7 series, 2-2, setting up an all-important Game 5 on Friday. All eyes were trained on Getzlaf.

“Who’s kidding who?” McLellan said. “He’s a tremendous player. He’s got tremendous size, strength, skill, vision and experience. So, if you think that one type of game, one guy, is going to shut him down, it’s not going to happen that way. It’s going to have to be a group effort.”

Getzlaf exposed the Oilers’ weakness at center again in Game 5, igniting the Ducks’ rally from a 3-0 deficit with the first of their three goals in a span of 3 minutes, 1 second. Later, 6:57 into double-OT, he set up Corey Perry’s game-winning goal with a deft pass from along the left-wing boards.

There is literally no one who matches up with Getzlaf from a physical standpoint. The Oilers’ best center is Connor McDavid, who might very well be the best player in the NHL this season despite being only 20 years old. Getzlaf turns 32 next Wednesday, the date of a possible Game 7.

McLellan doesn’t want McDavid chasing Getzlaf around the ice. McLellan would be asking too much of his top player, likely restricting his offensive chances to only a handful in what very well might be another defensive exercise in futility for the remainder of the series.

Besides, McDavid had a rough time trying to rid himself of Ryan Kesler, the Ducks’ second-line center and all-around pest. McDavid has three goals and two assist in the series going into Game 6, fine numbers, to be sure, but no match for Getzlaf’s five goals and five assists.

“You want to be smart,” Edmonton defenseman Oscar Klefbom said of trying to thwart Getzlaf. “You cannot go out there and think you can run him over and take the puck. He’s very strong on the ice. He wants you to engage so he can create the (open) ice for the other players, so you have to smart.

“He’s very tricky to play against.”

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Game 3 line rushes: Ducks vs. Oilers

April 30, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

EDMONTON, Alberta – The Ducks may contemplate some changes for Game 3 as they’re attempting to get back in the best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals against the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night at Rogers Place.

Sami Vatanen has yet to return to the defense corps since Game 1 of the first round against Calgary but he took part in the optional morning skate, occasionally winding up and taking slap shots. Vatanen has been dealing with an unspecified upper-body injury.

Korbinian Holzer played in the Game 2 loss to the Oilers, with his holding penalty being cashed in on a second-period goal by Edmonton’s Patrick Maroon. Holzer will draw in again if Vatanen is unable to go as Kevin Bieksa (lower body) is expected to miss a second straight game.

The Ducks recalled wingers Ondrej Kase and Nic Kerdiles from San Diego (AHL) on Saturday and Ducks coach Randy Carlyle has either available for usage. Nick Ritchie was a late Game 2 scratch because of flu-like symptoms. Ritchie did skate in the morning but wasn’t sure if would be in the lineup.

“Wasn’t feeling very good,” Ritchie said about sitting out Friday. “Felt that I wasn’t ready to play at that time. … I felt fine this morning. I guess we’ll see when the game comes.”

Kase and Kerdiles were playing with the San Diego Gulls in their Calder Cup playoff series against the Ontario Reign. Kase did make his NHL playoff debut in Game 1 against Calgary when Ritchie had to sit out because of a suspension.

“Kase is a skilled player,” Carlyle said. “He was with us for a better part of the year. He’s kind of like the Energizer bunny out there. He can make plays in small areas. He can score goals.

“He’s an energized young hockey player that’s getting his feet wet in the NHL.”

The Ducks are obviously looking for a different result in Game 3 but they’re planning to go about the game in a similar manner.

“You don’t change the effort,” Carlyle said. “We increase the effort. It’s just we’re looking for results. It’s a results-driven business we’re in. They scored two, we scored one. There’s a good feeling in our group because of the work ethic we’ve provided, the number of chances that we created.

“Now we know we’re going to come into a somewhat hostile environment and that’s what’s going to be expected.”

John Gibson (3-2, 2.76 GAA, .915 SV%) came off the ice first and appears to be the Game 3 starter in goal. Gibson has allowed six goals on 54 shots in the two games for an .889 save percentage.

Here is the projected lineup for the Ducks:

Rickard Rakell-Ryan Getzlaf-Patrick Eaves

Andrew Cogliano-Ryan Kesler-Jakob Silfverberg

Ondrej Kase/Nick Ritchie-Antoine Vermette-Corey Perry

Chris Wagner/Nic Kerdiles-Nate Thompson-Logan Shaw

Cam Fowler-Brandon Montour

Hampus Lindholm-Josh Manson

Shea Theodore-Sami Vatanen/Korbinian Holzer

Halfway to a potential berth in the conference finals, the Oilers are looking at an opportunity to take a commanding 3-0 series lead after capturing the first two games in Anaheim.

Cam Talbot (6-2, 2.03 GAA, .934 SV%) was the Game 2 star as he made 39 saves in the 2-1 win. Talbot already has two shutouts this postseason and has stopped 72 of the 76 shots he has faced.

“He’s been very steady and gives us a lot of confidence,” Edmonton center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said. “At the same time, we want to definitely be better for him tonight and put a lot more pressure on t heir goalie.”

Talbot said he has dealt with a few bumps from the Ducks around his net but added that it comes to be expected in the playoffs, especially when going against a desperate team.

“I just try to keep playing my game,” Talbot sad. “Try to maintain my depth in net. Not letting them they push me back. Just try and get to the top of that blue line any time I can.

“Anytime they give me a bump in there, hopefully the refs will see that. But I’m just going to try to keep getting out, getting in my lanes and hopefully find the most pucks.”

The Ducks have talked about getting more in Talbot’s eyesight as they’ve felt the goalie has been able to see too many pucks coming his way. They threw 85 pucks his way in Game 2 but misfired on 27 attempts and had 18 blocked in addition to the 40 that Talbot faced.

“The identity of our team is when we start doing those things, we’re able to wear teams down,” Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler said. “You saw it in the third period. We had a lot of time in their own end. So if you continue with that formula, you expect at some point something’s going to break.

“Unfortunately it didn’t in Game 2. There’s no reason to get discouraged with that. If we continue with that mentality, you have to have a little bit of patience when it comes to this time of the year. We have a lot of guys in here that have done this before and we understand that if we continue to do that, then hopefully things will turn in our favor.”

Here is the projected lineup for the Oilers:

Patrick Maroon-Connor McDavid-Leon Draisaitl

Milan Lucic-Ryan Nugent-Hopkins-Jordan Eberle

Drake Caggiula-Mark Letestu-Zack Kassian

Benoit Pouliot-David Deshanais-Anton Slepyshev

Oscar Klefbom-Adam Larsson

Andrej Sekera-Kris Russell

Darnell Nurse-Matt Benning

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Championship window remains wide open for Ducks as they get set to open series against Oilers

April 25, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding

ANAHEIM – You can say the Ducks’ 11-0-3 run to end the season and subsequent four-game sweep of Calgary in the first round were the result of many factors – from the seamless addition of a veteran scorer in his career season, to the depth in defense and goaltending, to the captain who has been the team’s best player.

All good reasons, and there are more beyond those.

Or you could chalk it up to fairy dust.

At a ceremony last month to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2007 Stanley Cup team, Ducks owner Henry Samueli wished for that beloved group to spread some “fairy dust” over the current outfit. Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, two of the three remaining active members from that club, smiled – and apparently took their boss’s command to heart.

The Ducks have yet to lose a game in regulation since that March 12 evening. Who would have thought a home win over Washington – a nice win over the NHL’s top team, but just a win – would serve as the launch pad to a push for the Cup that’s become a little more real?

“It’s just a game but it’s something you can use,” Perry said Tuesday, thinking back to that reunion night. “Looking back, that’s kind of where everything sparked. The way we looked at it, we were just trying to get into the playoffs and make ourselves available for a playoff spot.”

Making the playoffs was merely fulfilling an expectation. Making a Cup run is their hope, even their plan. And a path to the silver chalice unexpectedly became clearer.

To a man, the Ducks don’t want to gaze off into the distance beyond the Edmonton Oilers as Game 1 of this best-of-7 playoff series is Wednesday night at Honda Center. They’re set for a back-and-forth battle with a team on the rise that’s out to show it can contend now as well as in the future.

But they also can’t ignore the fact that Chicago, with its three titles in six years, is no longer in that championship picture. San Jose, the reigning Western Conference champion, is also out. So is Minnesota, despite going all-in for a title run at the trade deadline.

The Ducks know their championship window will one day close. Maybe not until it locks. But, in this pressure-packed moment, it may never be more open.

“I think we’ve always known that,” said Andrew Cogliano, a 10-year winger now going against his original team. “It’s not like you’re not trying. It’s not like you don’t want it. It’s a matter of going out and hopefully doing it. Trying to put your best foot forward every game.”

Young players have made an impact for the Ducks, not only in the regular season but so far in the playoffs. But there are the veterans who know they’re running out of chances. Particularly players such as Ryan Kesler and Kevin Bieksa, who accepted trades to Anaheim with the belief that hoisting a Cup was possible.

“There’s definitely a recognition of that,” said Antoine Vermette, who won with Chicago in 2015. “It’s fun. It’s a situation where you want to embrace. It doesn’t come too many times. I was fortunate enough to start in the league with Ottawa. Every year we’d be in the playoffs and you had a chance to compete.

“As a young guy, sometimes you take that for granted even though older guys are telling you that it’s a great opportunity and you got to make sure you enjoy that and make the best out of it.”

But to bring up the possibility that a path to the Cup has been made easier is a taboo subject. Providing an answer that’s in lockstep with that belief might incur the wrath of the hockey gods.

“There’s no point,” said Getzlaf, the Ducks captain, after some initial resistance. “Every team is this playoffs is here for a reason. Every year, everyone goes into the playoffs and says if you make it in, you can win. But then every year somebody gets knocked out and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, I can’t believe they got beat.’

“Everybody’s here for a reason. Nobody’s in the playoffs by mistake.”

Kesler is right in with that line of thinking. To suggest that the absence of Chicago or Minnesota – or even San Jose – has improved the Ducks’ chances would be a fallacy.

“Those teams lost because they weren’t the better team,” Kesler said. “You can’t take anything away from Nashville or St. Louis. Nashville swept Chicago. They were the better team. St. Louis beat Minny in five games.

“For us, we don’t worry about the path. We worry about the Edmonton Oilers and what we need to do to be successful against them. And then whatever team moves on, we’ll look at that.

“We’ll assess that at that time.”

In other words, there was no sigh of relief that emerged from the Ducks when the Blackhawks were bounced in unceremonious fashion. There was no deep breath taken after former coach Bruce Boudreau was handed another early exit, this time with Minnesota. No exhaling at the thought of avoiding Joe Pavelski, Joe Thornton, Brent Burns and Co.

“Honestly, I don’t think that crossed anyone’s mind,” Cogliano said. “I really don’t. The teams that are in it – Nashville’s a heck of a team. St. Louis is a great team, Edmonton’s a great team. Whoever you play, I think the teams that are in are in for a reason, to be honest.

“The teams that are still remaining are the best teams. The best teams win. They win their series.”

Each series, the Ducks insist, is its own entity. So while the Ducks’ 15-0-3 run started with an impressive 5-2 spanking of the Capitals – the Cup favorite that’s among the eight left – it won’t have any meaning in the long run if they don’t carry it beyond this round.

“That’s history,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. “That’s all over. We got to worry about the next one and the next one is the most important one. That’s the attitude that we’ve taken. We can’t sit on our laurels, we’ve won this and we’ve won that. We haven’t won anything.

“We won the last hockey game. And if you can keep winning the last hockey game, then you’re going to give yourself a nice chance.”

In one sense, it is classic Carlyle coachspeak in throwing cold water over any perception that the Ducks are a runaway train. But in another, he is right in that it should be a more difficult task to eliminate Edmonton. The Oilers proved their worth in handling San Jose in six games, with two of their four wins coming on the road.

When it comes to the Stanley Cup playoffs in this era, nothing can be taken for granted. Or as Vermette said, “You don’t want to get ahead of yourself.”

“A lot of teams right now have to look at themselves and think they should have expected more,” the 13-year center added. “We have something here that certainly gives us a real chance. We want to make sure we make the best out of it.”

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