While I'll have a full breakdown (with video!) of the Skills Showdown tomorrow, I wanted to highlight the other critical piece of today's event at Honda Center. Before the actual fun began, General Manager Bob Murray and coach Bruce Boudreau spent about 30 minutes answering questions and giving an overall State of the Franchise. Murray and Boudreau covered a range of topics and made several interesting statements ranging from the state of the farm system and their goals in the draft to a not-so-subtle message that some of the team's best players need to start delivering more effort.

I did my best to take notes about everything Murray and Boudreau touched on, but I'm only one man with a legal pad. I feel that the following notes accurately summarize the high points, but please do not take any of these as direct quotations.

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The Columbus Blue Jackets, the worst team in the NHL, had one things the Ducks have struggled to produce a majority of the season - tenacity. We saw moments of it tonight from the Ducks, but not the sustained push that Columbus had. The Jackets have nothing to play for at this point except their number one draft pick. The Ducks are playing for their playoff lives. One point is sometimes OK, but it's certainly not when you're playing a team that you should be able to beat.

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This could be the most difficult game preview I've ever had to write. What do you say about this game? The Ducks have been bad a majority of the first half, and are lucky that Columbus has been even worse. It's the polar opposite of the Superbowl - the Suckybowl.

The Ducks should annihilate Columbus tonight, but I have a feeling they won't. It's not because they aren't a marginally better team. It's because the Ducks don't know how to play to the level of teams worse than they are. It's easy for the team to get motivated for a challenge like San Jose or Philadelphia, but how do you get psyched to play a bottom dweller? In these games, the Ducks relax and it's the worst possible thing they could do.

There is one bright spot, though. Jason Blake is back! It's apparent that the Ducks can only survive one game without having him in the lineup before getting spanked like they did on Wednesday. I still don't get it, but whatever. At least we're not Columbus.

Battle of the Bottom Feeders, Round 3. Hopefully it doesn't involve any Rick Nash chicanery. But more importantly, this is the time to regain our January momentum. A loss to the Blue Jackets would be completely demoralizing.

Make me proud, Ducks.

• Two Ducks-Jackets previews. [TSN] [Fox News]
• Wednesday's loss to the Stars was also Bobby Ryan's 300th game, and Corey Perry's 500th. It was also the first game in which the Ducks have failed to earn a point since January 4th. Maybe they decided to take the day off in celebration? Hopefully they'll be back tonight. [Puck Daddy]
• Emerson Etem made the Kootenay Advertiser's WHL Plays of the Week list. [Kootenay Advertiser]
• Devante Smith-Pelly is anxious to return to the Ducks' lineup. [OC Register]
• Scott Niedermayer has been named to the British Columbia Hockey Hall of Fame. [Canada.com]
• Are the Nashville Predators targeting Bobby Ryan? [On The Forecheck]
• Winning like Charlie Sheen. [Ducks and Pucks]
• The Anaheim Ducks Towel invades St. Mark's Campanile. [Anaheim Ducks Towel Invasions]
• Come to the Ducks Skills Competition tomorrow! [Anaheim Ducks]
• Another day, another Backhand Shelf podcast. [Backhand Shelf]
• Bruce Boudreau reflects on on our 'off night.' [Anaheim Ducks]
• The New York Rangers have traded Erik Christensen and a 7th round pick to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Casey Wellman. Christensen is largely regarded as a marginal player in the Rangers system. Wellman has played 41 NHL games, and was a big part of the Houston Aeros' (the Wild's AHL affiliate) run to the Calder Cup Finals last season (I went to every Western Conference Final/Calder Cup Final game in Houston, and was pretty impressed with his play).
• And finally, Kyle "Trade Bait" Palmieri and Mark Bell have been reassigned to Syracuse. [Anaheim Ducks]

Did the Ducks just realize that Jason Blake isn't in the lineup for the second consecutive game? This is looking eerily like the first time Blake was hurt. Win the game after Blake's injury and then suck it up the next game. Hurry back, Blakey!

Conspiracy theories aside, this game was heinous. I loved the Ducks tenacity the first half of the first period and then it all went down the crapper. Actually, I was hopeful going into the 3rd period with the Ducks only being down by two goals. Yet the the Ducks of yore showed up and allowed Dallas to score 36 seconds into the period. What really pisses me off is that Dallas wasn't even all that great tonight. They played simple hockey and let the Ducks make the mistakes. With this team, it's always one step forward, four steps back. Frustrating.

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At work, the back wall of my office is covered in Ducks fowl towels, so it's more than obvious that I am a crazy Ducks fan. (Although I did tell a guy that my favorite color was orange and the Ducks made it easy to post orange things around my office. He believed me.) As I was pretending to be awake at my desk this morning, a couple people walked by and had almost the same thing to say to me, "How 'bout those Ducks? Good game last night. Too bad this isn't the beginning of the season." To which I always give a completely stone-faced, "I know."

As I thought about it more, would I really want to start this season over? No, I don't. For starters, we wouldn't have Bruce Boudreau. He could've ended up at the Kings coach for all we know. His impact alone (even though it took a bit to click) makes me OK with this late resurgence. Another reason is that with desperation comes the greatest hockey. What we see now is desperation. If Andrew Cogliano - son of Stone Hands (Todd Marchant) - is scoring a natural hat trick, you are seeing desperation. The whole team has bought in that they can't rely on the big guns to make any sort of run. And said big guns know that they can't sit back and rely on the depth scoring to have a good night because that's their ticket outta' So Cal.

Yes, it sucks to be looking up in the standings; however, I'd rather be looking up knowing my team is beating the crap out of other teams as they claw their way up. They aren't going to win every game, but if they want even a shot, it starts with division rivals and the magical 4-point games. Dallas snapped the winning streak of the Ducks before the All-Star break. It was a fantastic game by Anaheim that ended in a loss due to a flukey goal. Losing to Dallas 1-0 is really quite outstanding considering the offensive power they have. The Duck have to play pretty much the same game as they did a little over a week ago and just hope that Kari Lehtonin is having an off night.

Wait - did Andrew Cogliano seriously get a hat trick last night? I feel like I'm living in a bizarro parallel hockey universe.

• Are we ready for a second half surge? [Rant Sports]
• The people at Sportsnet.ca discuss the Teemu Selanne trade rumors. [Sportsnet.ca]
• New year, new Jonas Hiller. [Yardbarker]
• Puck Daddy's Harrison Mooney seems to think that we're too low in the standings to make the playoffs. Thoughts? [Puck Daddy]
• News flash: rest is good for older athletes! [OC Register]
• Lubomir Visnovsky and Jason Blake could both be on the trading block at the end of the season. [ESPN]
• Jeremy Rutherford seems to think that we might be interested in St. Louis Blues goalie Ben Bishop. [Twitter]
• The Ducks will host the 2nd annual Throw-Back Classic Adult Hockey Tournament over Presidents' Day Weekend (February 17th-20th). [Anaheim Ducks]
• The Ducks are also holding the All-Star Game Surprise Puck Sale (which includes an autographed Corey Perry All-Star jersey). [Anaheim Ducks]
• Jewels From The Crown discusses the playoff threshold in the West. [Jewels From The Crown]
• We're facing the Stars tomorrow. What are their expectations? [Defending Big D]
• The uselessness of real-time stats. [Backhand Shelf]
• From Hockey Wilderness' Brian Reynolds: Vote for Defending the Blue Line (a charity that George Parros supports). They have the chance to win a prize from President Obama. [Anaheim Calling]

After an incredibly slow first period that harkened back to all of the miserable hockey the Ducks played in November and December, the Ducks finally found their footing in the second en route to an eventual 4-1 victory. The third line of Andrew Cogliano, Nick Bonino, and Matt Beleskey hustled their tails off and created the first Ducks goal of the game after Mike Smith forgot that he should defend the area in front of the net, rather than the area behind it. Cogs used his speed to create the second goal of the game (with a healthy assist from Smith yet again) and a great touch pass from Bonino just minutes later gave Cogliano his third goal of the period and the first hat trick of his career.

The Ducks then survived a 5-on-3 penalty when referee Dan O'Halloran enforced NHL rule 69.3 and waved off what appeared to be Phoenix's second goal of the game early in the third period. Phoenix would never truly recover, and after exchanging a series of penalties with the Coyotes in the third period, the Ducks iced the game when Teemu Selanne skated the puck into the empty net for a power play goal.

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