Ducks Lose a Heartbreaker in Motown
by Jen Neale on Feb 10, 2012 9:19 PM PST
in Gameday
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PrintThat was one hell of a game, and the Ducks far exceeded my expectations. Truthfully, I thought we were going to get crushed. The only teams on a better run than the Ducks right now are Nashville and Detroit. Couple that with Detroit having a now 19-game win streak at home, and you can see why I wasn't so confident.
While it hurts to have played so well only to fall in the shootout, the Ducks shouldn't feel down when it comes to the game as a whole. They played their butts off and secured a much needed point against the top team in the Western Conference. Sure one point isn't as good as two, but it is better than zero.
The only thing the Ducks need to be concerned about now is not letting the intense emotions from this game drain them before taking on Columbus. They're going from facing the very best team to facing the very worst team. The team has to bring the same effort each night this entire road trip, regardless of who they're facing.
[Note: As I publish this, no highlight video of the game is available on the Ducks website and NHL.com. I'll post the video when it is eventually uploaded.]
GOOD
-- George Parros scored the Ducks only goal?! Kind of crazy that George would score his first goal of the season against Detroit, in Detroit. We keep preaching depth scoring and your 4th line enforcer is as deep as you can get.
-- 3-on-3 hockey is AWESOME! Forget 4-on-4 OT or shootouts, go straight to 3-on-3. The Ducks trio owned the ice (including a Cam Fowler break away) against Detroit until Corey Perry killed the fun by getting a penalty.
-- Jonas Hiller is playing the best hockey of his career and it's at the most crucial time. It doesn't matter if you're lucky or you're good, just as long as you stop the puck.
-- Penalty Kill seems to have found it's footing again going 6 for 6 on the PK. A lot of that success can be attributed to Francois Beauchemin and Sheldon Brookbank (whaaa?). Brookbank was the goat many times last season, but he's turned it around. Perhaps paring him with Toni Lydman helped solidify his game.
-- The Ducks controlled Pavel Datsyuk in the offensive zone leaving him with only one shot on goal. That's not an easy task by any means. He has the ability to make people look downright ridiculous.
BAD
-- Saku Koivu, Ryan Getzlaf, and Nick Bonino were spanked in the faceoff circle. None of the guys were more than 40% successful on the dot. Ouch.
-- Penalties. No matter how good the penalty kill is, you can't continue to have six odd-man advantages during the game and expect to win.
-- Someone find me a stat on how many goals the Ducks have had disallowed this season. Nicklas Hagman scored a goal only to have it disallowed due to goalie interference by Parros. We could have won.
UGLY
-- Dude, where's my power play? The Ducks - in Detroit - had seven chances at the man advantage and failed to connect on all of them. Getting a penalty called on any Red Wing while in Detroit is damn near impossible and the Ducks managed to get seven (7!!!) opportunities. Not good at all. What the heck changed between this season and last?
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First I’d like to give the MVP to Beauchemin this year for night tonight.. He was an absolute beast… Secondly, Sbisa holy shit! He kicked ass tonight too..
But the worse player was by far Fowler.. His confidence is really low right now.. He’s thinking too much.. He does not skate himself out of bad situations and scared to move the puck.. He needs to be put on the second power play unit.. Then maybe our pp will turn around.. I say put sbisa on the 1st
by ShamuSalami on Feb 10, 2012 9:44 PM PST via iPhone app reply actions
I don’t know what it is, but this team just cannot bury their scoring opportunities. We lead the league in missing open nets by less than an inch. It’s mind boggling because our roster is pretty much the same as last season and we had no trouble getting clutch goals and hitting open nets. Oddly enough, the only player who could use age as an excuse (Teemu) is the only one who doesn’t whiff 90% of the time he has a good chance.
I can vividly remember Getzlaf, Perry and Fowler all missing wide open nets tonight. It gets very frustrating when our best players keep whiffing in every single game. At some point our best players (especially the captain) has to put the damn puck in the net. I’m going to lose it next time I hear an announcer say “And (insert Ducks star here) just missed the net on a great scoring opportunity!”
Also, for a team with several All Star-caliber forwards, we are terrible at the shootout.
Fight on!
Some random observations: Beleskey looked very good. He definitely deserves to be on a team. There are things I like about Blake, but I need to start admitting that his creativity and tool set is quite limited. Sure Getz tries his best, however hes too young to be this slow. I mean he loses races for loose pucks and his forecheck is becoming increasingly ineffective due to his foot speed. He needs to do something about this. Both Perry and Ryan looked reckless on their shootouts opportunities. PP looked bad and funny with Visnovsky doing all those circles in the center ice. Detroit made them look like amateurs. Teemu could still be the one of the fastest guys on the team. That breakaway was a beauty had he scored. Saku also made a fun out of that Wings D guy but sadly also couldnt score.
That wings d Guy was Zetterberg. The 0 for 7 on the PO really hurts. There’s no reason for that with the amount of talent we put out on the ice.
by DavidBL on Feb 11, 2012 1:46 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Couple of points:
- Was the most exciting game of the season so far. When you come in expecting not a lot and see the Ducks actually outplay the Red Wings, you know it’s going to be fun. The loss doesn’t sting at all as much after such good of a game.
- I don’t know if Detroit has a very aggressive PK, but our PP couldn’t seem to create any room that often. More often then not the forwards backs were faced against the goal as they cycle and grind along the boards until the puck bounces somewhere else. Compared to the Wings PP, in which we were bottled up in the middle and they could just keep passing and looking for those open onetimers.
- I don’t know why, but Fowler and Getzlaf seem to be both suffering from low confidence right now. Not taking shots, even with open nets, playing out of position etc…
- It was annoying, but I pretty much knew that if we’d go to a shootout, we’d lose this one. Red Wings have (imo) one of the best shooutout artists and the Ducks haven’t been playing that well in that department.
- MacDonald plays very aggressively in net, which made me wonder why were we trying to beat him with direct shots (also in the shootout) when our best chances came after a couple of passes / dekes. He positioned himself very well, but not that fast / agile. Kind of a better version of Emery, but still susceptible to sideways movement. Someone on the bench should have scouted this out.
- This game leaves a good taste in my mouth. If we can play so well against the Red Wings of all teams, it won’t be a matter of not having enough skill to make the PO’s, but enough effort.
@Fallenity
Go Ducks Go!
In my mind, Henrik Zetterberg is Zapp Brannigan from Futurama and that's why I call him Big Z.
I’m not a fan of the shootout, but … the best part of this game was Teemu putting us in the Delorian and busting out his Game 5 2007 backhand shelf move at The Joe. It just felt like such an “Eff You” to the fans. I don’t care if it wasn’t intentional, in my mind it was and that’s all I need.
On an unrelated note, you know Babcock was pissed about that game. SEVEN penalties, 9,852 posts. They could have won or lost that game 5-1, and still they come away with two points, even with an AHL goalie in net standing on his head (somehow) and getting super lucky. Detroit is scary good as usual.
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My favorite part was when Beleskey (I think?) took a run at Kronwall midway through the first, I believe. I’m thinking Teemu is buying that dude dinner very very soon!
LA lost in ot earlier today. Some other big games today. It’s kind of sad that we’re already forced to scoreboard watch, but oh well. It’s that part of the season and I’m actually really excited.
It doesn’t really matter what the Kings do. It’s 8th or bust for the Ducks. It’s Phoenix, Colorado, Minnesota and Calgary in the way.
by Daniel AC on Feb 11, 2012 2:09 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Not necessarily. The Kings are only 3 points ahead of Phoenix and could fall to any of the 5 teams ahead of us. We may end up fighting the kings for number 8 while Phoenix or Calgary take #7.
by DavidBL on Feb 11, 2012 2:26 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
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