Hiller Is Not His Usual Self

by Daniel Gates on Nov 17, 2011 6:40 PM PST

Hey Ducks fans. The beginning of this season showed us mostly the same team that ended in 4th place in the western conference with home ice advantage plus a few upgrades with a faster younger 3rd and 4th lines. WIth all star goalie Jonas Hiller coming back there was nothing but optimism for us ducks fans. Then all of a sudden our top lines forget how to score and then our defense looks like it doesn't know what it is doing and now Hiller is getting pulled every couple games. The ducks, like most other NHL teams, lean heavily on their goalie during tough times. I think its safe to say that the ducks are in tough times right now. Actually no its a fact that the ducks are in tought times. Losing 11 of their last 13 is almost hard to even try and do. There are many events in a game that can swing the momentum. For example, a big hit, a fight, a great save. Look up the definition of a great save and you will find a picture of Hiller. When things go wrong we have relied on him to provide some stability in at least one aspect of the game. This year has been different. I don't know about you guys but I am sick of seeing Hiller let in sharp angle shots from the side posts. Hiller can stop a top scorer on a break away but he cant cover the post?! Give anyone a pair of pads and tell them to stand against the post and that puck will never go in. This is inexcusable and it absolutely kills our momentum. I feel that with George Parros out now more than ever Hiller has to play a solid game to give the players and coaches time to make corrections to get back on track before we dig ourselves too deep and play catch up all year long. I know that it isnt all Hiller's fault. At times bad defense and lack of forchecking can be to blame but again we need him to be solid until we can get going again. I hate to say it but if these soft goals keep continuing Ellis needs to be given a chance to be our go to guy. Remember this inst a what have your capable of league its a what have you done for me lately league and quite frankly Hiller and the rest of the team hasn't done much of anything for us lately.

Please let me know what you guys think!

Poll

Should Dan Ellis be given a change to play a stretch of games

Yes

25 votes

No

7 votes

32 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

I voted "Yes"...

For two reasons:

1) Even though Hiller looked good during the front-end of this back-to-back, he has still been shaky for most of the year like you said. He isn’t consistent, and although at times he’s very, very good, I hate seeing him give up those goals in the first five minutes of games. All that does is dig a hole the Ducks don’t need.

2) The entire team seems to be energized and confident when playing in front of Ellis. I don’t know what it is, but the guys move their legs and complement Ellis’ stellar play when he’s between the pipes.

I don’t know how to define stretch, but I would say work Hiller back in against bad teams, while making Ellis the go-to guy against teams like Detroit and Chicago.

"That might've been a little push, but that was a major flop. That would make Vlade Divac very proud." - Jerry Reynolds

by JuMowbray on Nov 17, 2011 7:07 PM PST reply actions

I think last night showed Ellis isn’t the savior

by bhlloy on Nov 18, 2011 8:26 AM PST via iPhone app reply actions

Big difference with Ellis is that he’s a lot better at playing the puck than Jonas, and it takes some pressure off of our D, I thought he played well last night bhlloy, there was one goal that he got caught swimming on but other than that he made some nice saves and earned another start.

by kvd123 on Nov 18, 2011 8:53 AM PST reply actions

We can agree to disagree then – goals 1 and 4 were plays an NHL goaltender has to make (you cant slide all the way out of the crease and fail to get back like that especially in such a key situation) and he looked pretty bad on the gagne breakaway as well although it’s tough to blame any of that goal on him.

Average hiller wins us that game last night in my mind.

by bhlloy on Nov 18, 2011 10:11 AM PST via iPhone app up reply actions

There’s no guarantee average Hiller would’ve shown up in the backend of a doubleheader

Fight on!
EMAW!

by Shackleford on Nov 18, 2011 10:55 AM PST up reply actions

I agree with that and the decision to start Ellis last night, just don’t think he’s the answer going forward

by bhlloy on Nov 18, 2011 5:51 PM PST up reply actions

Hiller was a good gamble for Burke to let Bryz go because of two things:

1. He’s a talented goaltender
2. We had Francois Allaire for the foreseeable future!

Two things are against him right now:

1. Health
2. No Allaire

So I say bench him for a while and see what Delauries or Tarkki can do. Maybe hunger to win the job wins out over having Allaire here for Hiller, Elliw, Deloaries or Tarkki. Probably some kinda mumbo jumbo where we can’t do that contracts, waivers etc, but dang we need to get something going in net.

Worth a shot.

by CoachZ on Nov 18, 2011 12:45 PM PST reply actions

I think a big thing people are over looking

is that when your team doesn’t score any goals, no goalie looks good. They know that anything that goes in could be a back-breaker. Hiller hasn’t played as well as he did last year but he’s also not the reason the Ducks are where they are. He has given them plenty of solid games that they’ve been unable to exploit. He’s had one or two bad games, but that’s not really that abnormal.

by PhantomPretender on Nov 19, 2011 3:44 PM PST reply actions