Baby Steps
October 7th, 2009 by ckoberCutsie offensive zone play, sloppy passing and bad turnovers marred Anaheim’s home opener on Saturday, as they were trounced by the Sharks 4-1. With a three goal lead after two periods last night in Minnesota Ducks fans had forgotten all about that, until their team crumbled in the final 20 minutes and eventually lost to the Wild in Overtime.
Defensive play is going to be tougher to watch this year in Anaheim with the absence of Chris Pronger. We saw it Saturday with atrocious outlet passing and loose coverage down low last night. The Wild’s three power play goals looked almost identical. The puck started from below the goal line and moved to an unmolested Minnesota player in the slot who slipped it five hole on Jiggy. The exception was the game winning goal where the pass was broken up but Andrew Brunette was able to pot the rebound.
Giving credit where credit is due, my girlfriend, Amy, gave me the title for this blog last night in pointing out the Ducks’ improvement from game one’s debacle to game two’s collapse. No doubt, it has been a slow start for the Ducks but there have been glimmers of hope.
The second period Tuesday night was one of those glimmers; the best 20 minutes played by Anaheim thus far this season, by far. The Lupul-Koivu-Selanne line clicked for two of the three goals (one on the power play). The coaching staff is still trying to find the right chemistry up front after some serious turnover in the off season. It seems to be coming along with that second line as expected, as long as they can simplify their game like they did in the second last night. It’s going to take a little bit of time to get to that mid-season form, where things are clicking and players are in a groove. Once the top line of Ryan, Getzlaf and Perry get the ketchup bottle flowing the things should turn around.
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