The London Effect: Putting the “UK” back in “SUCK”

Well, it’s been a combined 10 games played since the Ducks and Kings split games in London, and of course results have been less than stellar: combined only two of those games have resulted in BoC wins, and both those wins came midway through the third period. Combined, the teams have been outscored 11-8 in the first period, 19-13 in the second period, and 19-14 in the third.

Now of course each of these teams has some issues outside of the London travel: the Ducks have been playing with an injury-compromised roster since day one, and the Kings are still trying to figure out how to work with their new lineup, from the net on out. But still, I think it’s clear that there is more going on here than bad rosters—between the shortened training camps and the intercontinental travel, King and Duck results have been adversely affected by the bizarre start to the season.

As things continue to settle, I think we’ll get a better idea of what we can blame on London and what we can blame on actual roster deficiency, but I think the warning is clear. Next year the NHL has announced opening the season in Prague—so far the Lightning, Penguins, and Senators have been mentioned as possible ambassadors. If I’m any of those teams, I’d take a hard look at how the Ducks and Kings struggled after their returns to North America; so far the evidence shows that starting overseas is a huge early hurdle to overcome, especially for teams coming in with roster issues.
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Interesting stat from last night’s game: The Ducks scored a 6-on-5, a 5-on-3, a 5-on-4, a 4-on-4, a 4-on-5, and a 4-on-6 goal. Six different types of goals; none of them your basic 5-on-5. Of course, as the Chief points out, the refs had a field day yesterday: 5 hooks, 5 trips, 4 holds, 3 slashes, 3 unsportsmanlike conducts, and 1 each of crosschecking, elbowing, boarding, and interference (plus a delayed penalty that never got called). At this point, I’m hungry enough for the two points that I won’t complain too much about refereeing, but I don’t find it exciting or compelling when a 60 minute game is reduced to only 25 minutes of 5-on-5.

The Ducks’ power play is pretty intriguing right now, though, especially with the depleted roster. In the last two games, the PP has gone 2-for-19 in nearly 29 minutes of PP time. While that may not impress anyone, I actually think it’s been a decent number for the Ducks when considering who’s been playing on their second unit. Over the last two games, Rob Niedermayer has played 10:02 and Mark Mowers has played 9:46 of power play time, predictably with no goals scored. To compare, last year in 82 games with the Ducks Rob Niedermayer totaled 15:04 of power play time and in 78 games with the Bruins Mark Mowers totaled 15:40 of power play time. In that ice time, they combined for one power play assist. I really have no idea why they are meriting the ice time lately (other than I guess there’s no good candidates to fill the forward minutes), but it seems like Carlyle is comfortable throwing away the man-advantage time.

The real boost, though, has been on the other end of special teams with the return of Sammy Pahlsson and his fabulous PK. In three games since his return, Sammy has played nearly 13 ½ minutes of shorthanded time, in which the Ducks have scored two goals-for and allowed zero goals-against, including Pahlsson’s game-winning shortie last night. Overall this year, the Ducks have killed penalties at a 73.5% clip without Sammy in the lineup and a 93.8% with Sammy. While the London Effect certainly affects this discrepancy somewhat, the fact remains:

Sammy is god.

Earl Sleek: Audio Idiot

Well, the Ducks won their "home" game in England, 4-1, to put the Sharks squarely in the BoC basement, and also it prevented me from mass producing my "0-2 in the O2" t-shirts. All in all, it seems playing in England was a pretty good opening gesture for the NHL--no major head hits or stick swings, some decent back-and-forth hockey, and two rookies getting the season's first two NHL wins. It did take 15 minutes for the lights to turn on, 5 periods of hockey for an even-strength goal to be scored, and a bit longer to see find out that English fans love fights, but those glitches aside, it seems to have gone off rather well, or at least not badly.

In terms of the game, here's the key stat that caught my eye: in the first game, Coach Carlyle had Ryan Getzlaf out for 5 1/2 shorthanded minutes; he was on the ice for all three L.A. power play goals. In game 2, Carlyle dropped Getzlaf's PK time to 20 seconds while rookie Ryan Carter picked up more than 3 minutes, and the Kings' power play didn't score once.

Anyway, I didn't even get to see this game live--I figured the Ducks stood a better chance of winning if I went to church. But that didn't stop me from listening to the postgame show Duck Calls on my way home (not that rare), nor did it stop me from calling in (a first!). I was on with host Josh Brewster and L.A. Times writer Eric Stephens for what ended up being a 17-minute segment, talking about all the BoC teams. Most of that time I was pacing around a convenience store parking lot like a lunatic, but I guess I ended up sounding intelligible enough.

You can access the audio at the Duck Call site here -- my segment is labeled 'Sept 30 Part 4'. I can't say it's the most inspired piece of call-in-show dialogue, but I will direct your attention to about 55 seconds in, when Stephens throws in this gem: "Yeah, Earl. I have seen your site. It's well done, by the way."

I think I might have to see a doctor about my suddenly bloated head.

Kings Live-Blog: It's Never Too Early For Hockey!

So here's last night:

I went to Target to buy a gift for my roommate Megalodon and my other roommate, Matt (who refuses to go by a nickname because, and I quote, "I'm not gay,"), bought The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. (I don't know why.) We drank two bottles of wine and then I demonstrated to Matt's little brother the dangers of alcohol.. Anyway, my head feels like it was boiled but I promised you people a live-blog and God dammit, I'm going to give it to you. Here's some articles to start your day. The Kings named Rob Blake as their captain; some people thought it would be Derek Armstrong, which would have literally killed me. One thing those people didn't understand: he's ROB BLAKE. Lubomir Visnovsky and Mike Cammalleri join Scott Thornton as assistants. (Is it associate now? That's really lame.) I don't know why, seeing as how he's older than me and Slovakian, but I'm always really happy when Lubo accomplishes something. He's like my child!


I have a good feeling about these games in London. The Ducks are missing Pahlsson, the good Niedermayer, Selanne, Giguere, and Schneider. If the Kings are going to beat the Ducks this season, it's gonna be now. Anyway, I'll be here all game and Megalodon and Matt will be making snide remarks here and there. Go Kings.

(Oh, and Matt changed his mind: he wants to be referred to as "The Awesome Guy Whose Team Won the Stanley Cup." I hate my roommates.)

8:54: Taylor Swift. I am a fan.

8:56: Huell Howser. I am not a fan. Hockey needs to start.

9:00: Hockey!

9:02: The Ducks are Stanley Cup champions, the Kings are Red Bull chamions. Winner gets both, deal?

Bernier is getting the start.

9:06: The blue lines have been moved out? What the fuck? How is this a real game?

9:10: The British bird sucks at singing. Why are they singing the British national anthem? I thought we kicked their ass so we wouldn't have to listen to this bullshit. Bernier looks like he's about to cry. He needs to change his number if he's going to be on the team for a while.

9:15: Oh for fuck's sake, the lights aren't working. It's like they're trying to give me a heart attack. Matt thinks that they brought the lights from America and they don't plug in right in Britain.

9:23: They showed a shot of Rob Blake and he looked incredibly forlorn, like he was thinking, "Man, I wonder what Scott's doing. I should've retired too." This is not encouraging. Also, the lighting delay means that we get more Brian Hayward. Great.

9:28: According to reader Tapeleg (who I would have sex with, so why shouldn't you?), the usually put dampers on the lights so that they don't have to turn them on again. Apparently that's not how they roll in England. No wonder the British lost the War of 1812.

9:34: Is it just me or is the camera way too close? Also, they almost missed the drop because it's the NHL.

9:36: Okay, Brad Stuart managed to make me care about him; he bleached his hair and he looks ridiculous. Bertuzzi got a penalty for holding, somehow. He managed to keep from murdering someone, though, so that's an improvement.

9:39: Sean O'Donnell just shot on his own goalie. Seriously. He had the puck and shot it on Brzyzgalov. After he shot it, Jimmy said, "English rules!" Meg said, "That doesn't make sense," and I agree with him. We like to think that he's been saying that all week like it's some great joke.

9:46: It's always weird the first couple games of the season; Kyle Calder is wearing 19 and I thought, "What the hell is Sean Avery doing out there?" Shane Hnidy made sure someone noticed him by getting a penalty.

9:49: Hooray! Cammalleri scores on a 5-on-3 thanks to Rob Niedermayer. I think they said that the assists were to Lubo and Kopitar, and I would say that is the perfect first goal of the season.

9:53: The Ducks got a 2-on-1 on the penalty kill but Lubo broke it up beuatifully. I love that guy and I don't care who knows it.

9:56: Just so you guys know, all. Senior. Citizens. Should. Have. Life Alert. I like to think that that old chick talks like that all the time. "Would. You. Please. Get. Me. Some tea."

10:04: Do you think anyone has made a Laurel & Hardy joke when Pronger and Carlyle are next to one another. Also, Jimmy is in mid-season from; there's pointless stories all over the place.

10:03: Wow, Tulane sucks ass... oh, sorry, wrong game.

10:06: They keep pushing this "Name the Rivalry" thing. I think they should name it the "Shut the fuck up and talk about the game" Rivalry.

10:07: The Ducks had a power play but couldn't do anything with it. I love Rob Blake on the penalty kill because it's like he's trying to see what he can get away with without getting a penalty.

First period ends, Kings up 1-0. They look pretty good. Is it just me or are the refs really shitty? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that that one Mick is reffing. I'm lovin' the Armstrong-Frolov-Calder line. I'm going to go make some chicken nuggets.

Did you see that Steve Downie got suspended for 20 games for his hit on Dean McAmmond? That seems a little excessive. I mean, Chris Simon didn't get suspended for that long, and he swung his stick at that one dude's head! I guess Downie did deserve that elbow courtesy of Jack Johnson.

10:19: How has John McEnroe made an entire career out of being a whiny asshole? Also, that Carl's Jr. commercial with the flat buns is what is wrong with America. Where did the hot chick go? (I'm pushing Earl to make this a blog about commercials, but so far he's been resistant.)

10:24: I just noticed that Kyle Calder didn't screen Bryzgalov on the King's goal. This is after Jimmy spent 5 minutes talking about how Calder screened him. I love Jimmy, but he's not that good at his job.

10:30: 2nd period starts and it's the little things I love about hockey, like when the ref kicks a center out of the face-off circle. I like to think that they say, "What are you doin'? Get the fuck out of here."

10:32: Lubo gets a penalty for holding Todd Bertuzzi, but that's not fair. Lubo is like 20 pounds, how is he supposed to stop Bertuzzi? I think Bertuzzi should get a penalty for being mean.

10:36: Jimmy said that Bernier works best from his knees and I think he speaks from experience.

10:38: The Kings kill off a penalty kill thanks to Jonathan Bernier, who is amazing. I don't know how to react; the Ducks will dump it in and I just assume that it's going in because, well, that's what happens to the Kings. Bernier's fucking everything up!

10:42: I'd just like to take a moment to say that my brother can't watch the game because he's at work and he doesn't get Prime Ticket. To that I say:

Ha!

Hey, Shane Hnidy just boarded Patrick O'Sullivan! Fuck you, Shane Hnidy.

10:45: Hooray! Kings score thanks to Rob Blake. Dustin Brown made a great move to start the scoring oppurtunity. I love it when Blake is in front of the net; how do you move him?

Is Ivanans aware that you can't just hit someone when they don't have the puck? I don't think he is.

10:50: The Kings killed off the penalty to Ivanans. Bob and Jimmy talked about how Kopitar is living with his family this season, and that unsettles me.

10:53: Bernier makes a great save and then Rob Niedermayer tries to fight Jack Johnson. I'm not sure if the Kings can send Bernier down without mass rioting in the streets.

10:57: Jimmy said that Jack Johnson was "joshling" for the puck. Take a break there, big guy.

11:00: Modry with the save. Jon Klemm would have checked the puck, though, so he's better.

11:02: That'll do it for the 2nd period with the Kings up, 2-0.. This game kinda has a weird feel to me. Neither team seems like they're totally awake out there. I guess I can't complain too much, though, since the Kings are up. Back for the 3rd period in a bit.

11:05: I have to admit, I never get tired of them talking about how the Ducks don't have Selanne and Niedermayer. I'd like to say that now: the Ducks don't have Selanne and Niedermayer.

11:10: Bill MacDonald said that if Calder keeps playing like this, they might name a trophy after him. You are the worst person in the world, Bill MacDonald. On the other hand, Brian Hayward said that Teemu Selanne is one of the best "Fin(n)ishers" in the NHL. Now that's funny.

11:20: John Zeiler can't skate and it's somehow Pronger's fault. Kings on the power play. Zeiler skates like he has a stick up his ass.

11:22: Hooray! The Kings get another goal, this one thanks to Preissing. Kopitar gets another assist; hey Earl, does your league count power play points?

11:24: Who the fuck is Mark Mauers?

11:26: My roommates keep trying to guess which debilitating injury Jonathan Bernier will suffer this season. They're scaring me. Also, Matt thinks the reason the Ducks are so listless out there is because they're tired from carrying the Cup around everywhere.

11:30: Kopitar gets a penalty for hooking. He sucks and should be traded.

11:31: The Kings have had two good chances on the penalty kill: O'Sullivan had a nifty little move and then got dumped by Pronger, and Brown had a one-timer that Bryzgalov had a nice save on. They're booing Pronger for his hit on O'Sullivan, and how dick do you have to be to get booed by Brits?

11:32: "Jimmy, you can't drink while you're supposed to be working!" "English rules!"

11:38: If anyone wants to join the Jonathan Bernier Appreciation Society, meetings are on Wednesday at 8. Please bring some sort of baked good.

11:40: They gave the 3rd goal to Cammalleri, which gives him 2 on the day. I'd just like to remind everyone that we have him for 2 years at an extremely reasonable salary.

11:42: Boo! Bobby Ryan gets his first NHL goal on the power play thanks to Frolov. Ryan got the puck on a bounce and Bernier didn't really have a shot at it. Send him down!

Perry just got hit and looked shaken up. Unfortunately, he's okay.

11:47: He hasn't scored, but Bertuzzi has looked really good this game. He's driving to the net, staying strong on the puck, getting good shots... it's almost enough to make you forget that he once attempted murder.

11:48: I just noticed that the Kings brought their in-house announcer over to England. Was that really necessary? They didn't have one English guy that could do that job?

11:50: O'Sullivan has looked pretty good today too. He's had a couple of chances 1-on-1 where he just got in position to take the shot instead of trying to make a move.

11:52: Hey, what the hell was that? Andy McDonald just hit Bernier in the back of the head! I will bury you, Andy. The Ducks seem to think they're still in this game, so I don't think there's going to be a fight.

11:54: Well, fuck. There's a minute left, the Ducks are getting a ton of pressure, and Brad Stuart got a penalty.

11:55: Whew. Corey Perry had a great chance but Bernier stuffed him. O'Sullivan made a great play to get the puck to Michal Handzus and he ices the game.

11:56: Wow, Todd Marchant is kind of a dick. He just boarded John Zeiler. Oh well, when you're below .500 like the Ducks will be I guess you have to take the frustration out on someone.

11:58: That'll do it for the game. Kings win, 4-1. Jonathan Bernier played amazing and the Kings played a very tight, controlled game. Kings in first place!

That'll do it for me. Thanks for reading; it's tough to follow a game and write about it, but I might do this again if you thought it was good. If you didn't, keep it to yourself; I have low self-esteem.

BoC Gameday—A poetic beginning

Anaheim Ducks (0-0-0, 0 pts) at Los Angeles Kings (0-0-0, 0 pts), 9:00 am

Let's start this season off with a little class and culture, shall we? Before any blood spills, I mean.

L isten, dear readers, to the ballad at hand,
O f a Battle of California in a far distant land,
N ow the choice of location might strike you as odd,
D ucks and the Kings playing hockey abroad,
O 2 Arena—a new chapter ensues,
N ine in the morning—a great time to booze!

O ne team comes searching for answers in net,
P erhaps a teen rookie instead of a vet?
E lsewhere the cup champs begin their defense,
N ervously watching the retirement fence.
E ngland’s a strange place to stage the attack,
R eady or not, though, hockey is back!

Make sure you guys tune in later for Rudy's liveblog; I'm anxious to see a guy start crying before noon. All I'm going to offer is a little perspective from last year. These two teams met up for the season opener in Anaheim, and do you remember who scored the first goal of that game?


Hint: it's the guy in this photo that didn't just win the cup.
The only problem was, Rob Blake scored into his own net. And that's how the BoC's season started. That early mishap seemed innocent enough, but some will argue it set the momentum for the rest of the year; the Ducks continued to find ways to win while the Kings regularly found ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

Well it's a clean slate: a new season with new personnel in a new arena on a new side of the Atlantic. The 2007-08 season promises to be an awesome one in the BoC (especially once it gets to California!)—so let's get this bad boy started.

Prediction: I'm a little stumped what to predict with Pahlsson out of the lineup, so I'll just go with the goal scorers from last year's opener: Ducks 4, Kings 3. Perry gets credit for Blake's own-goal; McDonald, Getzlaf, and Kunitz also score. For the Kings, Kopitar scores two and Visnovsky gets one, making the day a fantasy success.

p.s. If anyone spots a girl in a green shirt in the crowd sitting next to a really tall guy in a Brodeur jersey, yell "Mags!" She's the only one I know at the event, and may provide a firsthand perspective if I'm persuasive enough.

The blog's all yours, Rudy. Go Ducks.

Earl Sleek: the model of Londifference

As the Ducks and Kings finish preparing for actual games this weekend, I thought I’d devote a post to the apparent problems of having two BoC teams starting their season in London. This is not to say that there won’t be any positives to these two teams taking the trip—but without knowing what the actual point of this Euro-experiment is, it’s tough to say how well the NHL did in its preparations. Anyway, here’s four reasons why the NHL’s decision-making seems odd to me.

1. Distance
In terms of miles traveled, the Ducks and Kings are the two most geographically distant NHL cities from London, England. It’s quite strange that the NHL would take its two furthest franchises and fly them 5,400 miles out of their way to start their season. But travel distance isn’t even the main concern here—there’s also an issue of time zones. If the NHL is trying to make more fans in the UK, maybe a smarter plan might have been to send two teams that don’t start most of their games at 3 or 3:30 am London time.

2. Destination
While the notion of having NHL games in Europe isn’t a bad one, the actual destination of London is bizarre—unlike many choices in Europe, England is not a hockey hotbed and there aren’t many Brits who make it to the NHL level. I mean, certainly there are British hockey fans, but how the NHL managed to pick a location where most of the locals are indifferent or unaware is beyond me. It’s not that it’s a hugely horrible decision, but it really begs the question—why not Sweden, or Finland, the Czech Republic, or Russia, a place where the NHL would be more warmly received?

3. Personnel
I’ve made a point of it before, but it is interesting that the NHL is sending the Ducks, the least European team in the league, to play in Europe. Anaheim’s player bias was exacerbated by the short summer—Sammy Pahlsson remains out with a hernia surgery and Teemu Selanne still needs more time to consider retirement. While it is cool that the games feature the defending Cup champions, I can’t help thinking it would be a better draw to send a team with an actual European superstar on it. I can think of 29 better possibilities in that regard.

4. Opponent
I’ve got a few mixed feeling about the fact that it will be the Ducks and Kings playing. On the one hand, they are pretty bitter rivals and probably will make for some exciting hockey, but on the other, the NHL took two of its guaranteed sell-outs and shipped them overseas. It’s a curious move for a league that is pretty gate-driven, at least. Surely there are games on the NHL’s schedule that could have used a London attendance boost more than Ducks-Kings.

But take heart, London! I’m not really here to make a big fuss about this; in fact, I’m having trouble caring about these drawbacks at all. Sure, the opening travel schedule for the Ducks is way inconvenient for the team, but as a fan, I’m not letting their issues get to me. For instance, the short summer might suck for a hockey player, but coming from the TV wasteland that is Southern California, I’m delighted to see hockey again this soon. And sure, maybe the team is screwed by all this early-season travel, but given the choice, I’d rather be screwed in the first few games of the year than sometime later.

Maybe I’m just feeling generous because of the cup win, but while the London games don’t seem like an ideal fit, I’m not going to raise a stink. Enjoy the novelty show, anyone who’s attending—there will be plenty of time afterwards to figure out if it was worth it or not.
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As an aside, if you haven’t seen the Ducks’ picture gallery of the team flying to London, it is perhaps my favorite team photo gallery ever. Not only do you get to see such great shots as Pronger getting his bag searched, Bryzgalov and Perry being screened with a hand-wand, and Parros doing a crossword puzzle, but damn, these Ducks fly in style! Anyway, I will be stealing from this picture gallery a bunch, I bet, so I figured I’d better link to it now.


This is the part of the plane where they keep the criminals.
Also, Sleek-favorite Sammy Pahlsson briefly answered some random questions—it turns out he hates Joe Thornton because he resembles the cast of “Dude, Where’s my Car?” Or something like that.

Aubservations From Austria

They were showing the game online at NHL.tv, so I ignored work for a while and watched the game. The Kings won, 4-3.

-Jack Johnson is a very good stick handler for a guy his size.

-You can't blame the goaltender for any of the goals the Kings let in. (I'm actually not sure who allowed what; Bernier started but was removed some time before the middle of the 2nd.) The first goal was Blake's fault; he jumped up during a change, lost the puck, and hung Lubo out to dry on a 3-on-1. The next two were both tip-ins on the power play.

-Patrick O'Sullivan looked pretty good. He was out there on the penalty kill and really got after the puck. He scored with a rocket from the circle.

-Brady Murray looks like he's skating underwater; he's pumping his arms and legs really fast but isn't actually moving that much.

-Lubo looks amazing on a large ice surface. Can he and Scott Niedermayer play together once? He scored on a power play that was almost ruined by Brian Willsie running into the goalie. I despise that dude.

-Cammy had a ridiculous goal where he went around two guys and then flipped over the goalie's far pad while he was almost past the net.

-Anze outdid him, though, scoring with 46 seconds left in the game. He had a partial breakaway, took a shot, got hauled down, then flipped a backhand over the goalie while he was on the ground. Is it possible for me to have his children? (Side note: he won MVP for the Kings and was given a jersey. The goalie for the other team won a PSP. Apparently tournament organizers thought the particpants were twelve.)

Overall, it was a pretty good game. I hadn't seen the Kings play yet this season, so I was happy. They outshot the other team 47-32, but penalties did them in. I hope that's just because of the larger ice surface (it's way easier to bring the puck in on the power play) and the fact that the refs called everything. The Kings still needed some work and they lacked any real secondary scoring without Handzus and Frolov out there. (I think Nagy was taken out of the game at some point, but I don't know why.) And now, London.

Kings Gameday: I'm Still Not Convinced This "Austria" Exists

Okay, c'mon, there's no way that's a real place.

The Kings are still in this mythical land of Austria, where people wear hats on their feet and the hamburgers eat people. (Jesus, is that the Australia episode too? That’s a good one.) Despite some… difficulties yesterday, the Kings still managed to win. Labarbera’s struggles in the game mean that he’s obviously worthless and we should just ignore the 80 games he played last year. (Playing goaltender on an international ice surface is way different because you have to adjust how you center yourself; I’m sure that was the problem. At least, I think.)

Anywho, the Kings now play some Swede team that I don’t know and will probably kick the hell out of them. (The day I fear something Swedish is the day I die at the hands of Matty Norstrom.) I assume Bernier will start this time, but I’ve given up on guessing what the hell the Kings are doing. Puck should drop in about 45 minutes.

Prediction: Kings, 6-2. 2 goals by Calder, 2 by O’Sullivan, 1 by Nagy and Brown. Kopitar will have 7 assists because he can do that.

***

Yesterday over on Inside the Kings, Rich Hammond quoted Marc Crawford as saying that Alexander Frolov and Michal Handzus were hurt. I knew about Frolov, but Handzus? He had his tonsils removed like a month ago! I’m beginning to think he may actually be a woman, or even worse, a baseball player.

***

I’m doing a live-blog! It should be Saturday, barring unforeseen circumstances. I’m sure I’ll be incredibly witty for the 1st period, realize I’ve made a huge mistake by the 2nd, and completely mail it in for the rest of the game. Should be fun. I usually wait until a live-blog is over before I start to read it, but if you’d like to follow along in the comments, feel free.

BoNY made me do it: Season Previews

Now that the Kings have introduced Bailey the hard-luck lion ("Seriously, I have to root for the Kings?!"), I thought I'd make a little all-nature BoC logo based on the teams' mascots. It got me thinking about what it would be like if there really were a three-way fight to the death among these three animals in nature. Sure, a lot of people would take the shark or the lion over the duck, but really, a lot would depend on location: the duck would outlast the lion in open waters and it would outlast the shark on dry land. And if you dropped them out of a plane, I like the duck's chances.

Regardless of what you think of the Kings' new mascot, you still gotta like the choice of a lion better than this option.

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Anyway, Rudy and I both got enlisted by Steve from Battle of New York to do another set of season previews for SportsFan Magazine, this time in the form of answering questions. It's actually been about a month since those answers were submitted, but fortunately nobody's made any preview-altering decisions about retirement since then. So here's Sleek answering 15 questions about the Ducks, and Rudy answering the same set for the Kings.

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There's not too much to report on the last few days of the Ducks' preseason--I'm not a guy who takes too much hope or dismay out of preseason results. Still, two things worth noting:

1. In the last preseason game against the half-roster Canucks, Coach Carlyle made an interesting lineup change: playing Getzlaf and Perry on separate lines. It's an intriguing possibility that I hadn't really considered until now, and at first blush I gotta say it probably makes sense. Perry played on a top line with McDonald and Kunitz, while Getzlaf killed on a line with Bertuzzi and Bobby Ryan.

2. Swiss goaltender Jonas Hiller "the Killer" played well enough through camp to earn a seat on a plane to London, but it's unclear whether he will get any playing time in the games against the Kings. If he doesn't, that will mean that the Ducks will have managed a pretty neat trick: going to play two NHL games in Europe and not playing any European players.

Well, the next game counts! Go Ducks.

Schneidermayer joins the LockoUK

Schneidermayer (noun) – a term used to refer to defenseman Mathieu Schneider in a situation where he is signed to replace the minutes of retirement-muller Scott Niedermayer.

LockoUK (noun) – a collective scheme by players to utilize whatever means necessary (surgery, injury, or possible retirement) to avoid taking intercontinental flights for regular season games in London.

I’ve been under the weather the past couple of days, but fortunately, there hasn’t been a terrible amount of Ducks news to report. Anaheim is 2-1-1 through four games this preseason, but hasn’t played a full-lineup game to really evaluate.

It’s not all meaningless news this preseason, though. Mathieu Schneider, playing in his first game in a Ducks jersey last week, fractured his ankle and will miss four weeks recovering. It’s not a huge setback, as most of that recovery time will happen before the season starts, but it does add another name to the list of Ducks stars skipping out on England.

Now I was going to write a piece about how I don't care that much about this “LockoUK” phenomenon, but my roommate has chastised me for my lackadaisical attitude towards the season openers in London. “You’re always so negative. Why not draw some cartoons celebrating NHL hockey's trip to England?”

So, without any further ado, here’s two cartoons—one from my roommate and one from me—meant to put a somewhat positive spin on the Ducks visiting London. Enjoy!