Ducks Gameday—The Three Patos!

Columbus Blue Jackets (11-12-3, t-12th in west) at Anaheim Ducks (14-10-3, t-4th in west)
No, we will not die like dogs! We will fight like lions!

"Three Patos, Anaheim, California. You are very great. 100,000 pesos. Come to Santa Poco, put on show, stop. The Infamous El Guapo."

In a way, each of us has an El Guapo to face.
Sometimes that El Guapo is the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Prediction: Ducks 4, Jackets 2. Goals by Little Neddy Niedermayer, Dusty Pronger, Lucky Day Selanne, and Santa Poco resident Pahlsson. Together they prune the hedges of many small villages. For your El Guapo coverage, go visit Bethany's Hockey Rants.

Go Ducks.

Ducks Gameday—Burke Week #4: GM Lessons from a Cup Champ

Anaheim Ducks (10-8-2, 7th in west) at St. Louis Blues (6-8-2, 15th in west)
Ducks had better have a better start or somebody's going to the dentist!

So for Part IV of this series, I thought I'd take a look at some of the ways that Burke was a very good general manager -- things that worked for the Ducks not only on their Cup run but also looking forward. Think of these as a bit of a primer for good ol' Bob Murray, or more accurately, Part IV: What I like about Burke the roster-builder.

Lesson One: If you want depth, don't acquire depth players; instead insert talent at the top of your roster.

While I've stated before that I’m not overly impressed that Burke had the "wisdom" to acquire Niedermayer, Selanne, or Pronger, I don’t want to take away from the fact that Burke knew what he was going after – a superstar. His focus wasn’t on filling in his roster with supplementary depth players, though he certainly put those pieces in place as well; he was looking to acquire top-flight players for the top end of his roster and let his existing roster form the depth. Not only was a superstar able to drop players down to more manageable roles, but Carlyle could even form a legitimate pairing with Scott Niedermayer and a league-minimum Francois Beauchemin, for example, and further benefit from an all-star's abilities. In a nutshell, if you ask me how Burke was able to build a cup winner, the answer is that he took a franchise with a lot of supporting parts and inserted talent at the top. By doing so, he made everyone more effective.

Lesson Two: Shelter your kids – It’s good for them and it’s good for you.

I think the way Getzlaf and Perry were brought into the league was phenomenal. Their rookie year they were played as fourth-liners, with Todd Fedoruk watching their backs – a very no-pressure environment to learn the ropes of the NHL. To effectively remove them from Calder consideration, they were even demoted for a month or so to the AHL Pirates, but played together throughout. Their sophomore year they moved up to second-liners, still sheltered from top defenders (Selanne drew those matchups) and top scorers (Pahlsson of course got those). That year was of course the cup year, so needless to say it worked out well. Then finally last year, their contract year, they were given responsibilities as top-liners, and having been groomed for the role they delivered. The payoff to the Ducks was two well-prepared top-liners who not only proved their abilities but also signed at reasonable rates ($5.6 million apiece, which certainly could have been worse). That salary in part has to do with their limited time on the top line – by holding them back not only were they better prepared but also had less career points come contract time. This also holds true for Bobby Ryan, who I can only speculate on his worth, but will certainly have limited NHL exposure come contract time two summers from now. It will be interesting to see how good Bobby Ryan becomes, or how prepared for NHL duty he is, and how much his sheltering pays off in his next contract for Anaheim.

Lesson Three: Be true to your players and they’ll be true to you.

I can't think of one time Brian Burke didn’t righteously stand up for one of his players in Anaheim – no matter how stupid or how idiotic it was. It’s one reason Brian Burke is as hated as he is by rival fans, but probably one reason why players seem so loyal to him. Whether it’s Bertuzzi’s suckerpunch, Pronger’s elbows or skateblade, Selanneidermayer’s semi-retirements, or even softer stuff like Giguere dealing with his baby’s health – Burke is front-and-center deflecting criticism and supporting his guys. He’s done seemingly honorable things in waiving Bryzgalov and proving Giguere with a no-movement clause, and I think there's payoff to those moves -- I know players are loathe to say anything controversial, but I haven't heard any player critical of Burke, even guys who have left under tough circumstances (Penner, McDonald, Schneider, Bertuzzi). Whether or not fans like or dislike what Brian Burke has to say, it does seem that players do respond favorably to it, and I think that perception is helpful in luring free agents to sign or players to re-sign.

Lesson Four: No Long-Term Deals ... Flexibility = Positivity!

This is a big one for me, too. Brian Burke has committed to two 5-year deals (Getzlaf and Perry), four 4-year deals (both Niedermayers, Kunitz, and Giguere), and only a few 3-year deals (McDonald and Carter, notably). He’s also acquired two deals with 4 years remaining (Marchant and Pronger). He’s stayed away from mammoth-year contracts, though, and I’m glad he’s done so. Burke hasn’t crippled rosters seven or eight years from now, and that has to be the wise move -- with a changing NHL landscape and a newly-implemented salary cap, it's tough to foresee what player values will be five years down the road. Now don't get me wrong -- I'm not against all long-term deals (I once advocated a fifteen-year deal for Getzlaf), but I'm glad it's not a crutch that Burke used to lure players to Anaheim. I think GMs who do that are selfish -- they are trying to win now while risking their franchise's ability to win in the future (partially it's because of mixed motivations -- the roster seven years from now is likely going to be a replacement GM's problem). So while many like to say that Burke has ruined the Ducks, it doesn't seem a long-term problem; in two or three years there will hardly be any Burke contracts on the books at all.

---------------------------------
So that's some of the positive GM lessons that Burke has demonstrated; if you feel like I've missed anything, feel free to add your own lesson from Burke in the comments. Part V I'll try to do a wrap-up; some GM lessons I didn't like, what I'll miss most and least about the guy (first in both categories: his mouth), and a conclusion.

Prediction: Bob Murray's Ducks 5, Andy Murray's Blues 2. Goals by Perry, Ryan, Morrison, Pahlsson, and Montador.

Go Ducks.

BoC Gameday—What Scares Me About Your Team

Anaheim Ducks (t-1st in west) at San Jose Sharks (t-1st in west)
Winner of tonight’s game is on top of the west!

Ah, the beauty of a new NHL season afoot, and what better way to kick it off than with a good ol’ Battle of California (competitive version)? Yeah, I know there were some "counting" games already played in Europe, and Ducks/Sharks is the only game on tonight's schedule without some version of national coverage, but I can’t care. Because tonight is Ducks-Sharks, one of my favorite matchups since the lockout. It's a measuring-stick game, a pride game, and an awesome way to start the NHL season (assuming the Sharks have paid their electricity bill this year).

To open this set of Gamedays and this NHL season, Mike Chen and I devised a little cross-state exercise. You know Mike, of course, from Battle of California, though I heard he has some side gig too. Anyways, instead of rehashing our own previews again, we instead decided to write about the opposition this time with three answers to: "What Scares Me About Your Team", a nice outsider's perspective to start the new year.

What Scares Sleek about this year's Sharks:

1. Joe Thornton plus offensive defensemen means trouble

The last three seasons, the highest scoring San Jose blueliners have been Craig Rivet 07/08 (74 gp, 35 pts), Matt Carle 06/07 (77 gp, 42 pts), and Tom Preissing 05/06 (74 gp, 43 pts). In each case, it's a career scoring high—none of them have demonstrated tremendous scoring ability away from Jumbo Joe. The lack of a true offensive talent on the blueline has been the Sharks' Achilles Heel, their missing ingredient in a sense. Finally at the end of last year the Sharks inserted an actual offensive defenseman – Brian Campbell – and the results were stellar. In 20 gp, Campbell recorded 19 points, and while that 78-point-season pace might not have been sustainable for a full year, it still showed the potential of using a creative talent behind San Jose’s glut of forwards.

Bring in Dan Boyle, and to a lesser extent Rob Blake. Boyle is a guy who’s already registered a 63-point season and two 53-point years, so he’s shown the ability to play well with top talent in Tampa. I haven’t watched a ton of Lightning games, so I can’t say for sure, but if Jumbo Joe is able to bring out a career year out of the Sharks’ new blueline threat, San Jose threatens to be a Pacific monster this year.

2. Red Wing motivational tactics

I’ve been reading some of new coach Todd McLellan’s motivational quotes over at the Seagate Broadcaster’s Blog, and his overall message has me worried. Not so much the “I don’t just want a hockey player, I want an ingredient” bit; other than some cannibalistic overtones that message is pretty routine. But how about this McLellan gem? “At this point in the season, the words ‘Stanley Cup’ aren’t part of the vocabulary.” First off, McLellan, I don’t think that’s very fair to Marcel Goc, who doesn’t have a very wide vocabulary to begin with. You’re going to take away two of his possibly twenty cohesive words?

But all kidding aside, I think McLellan seems to be doing the right things as a new coach for what’s been a tremendously successful team. He’s making the players better understand their roles for the team’s success, and is making sure that the short-term details that contribute to winning don’t get lost in the long-term goal. Of course, media quotes and on-ice performance can often be two different things, so I’ll reserve judgment, but I have to imagine the Sharks will be well-prepared for opening night.

3. Jonathan Goddamn Cheechoo

Yes, I know that Cheechoo is coming off his worst offensive campaign since his rookie year, and his preseason performance still has some Sharks fans worried, but that doesn’t make things less scary on my end. Cheechoo is the very definition of streaky – even in his good seasons he got hot and cold very fast. I wrote a post in the latter part of the 06-07 season that pointed that out: “4 goals in 2 games against the Ducks, which was preceded by a seven game goalless streak, that followed a 5 goals in 7 game stretch, that followed a 1 goal in 9 games slump, and well, you get the picture.” Also revealed in that post was the trend that Cheechoo scored at a much higher rate against the Ducks and Kings than against any other opponent.

The Sharks figure to have a very good team this season even if Cheechoo has another off year. However, if he gets anywhere near his pre-injury form, the Sharks will be awfully tough to keep up with in the standings this season. I guess my main hope is that Coach McLellan finds Cheechoo to be a very tasty ingredient and eats him, but that probably violates the CBA.

And now, heeeere's Mike Chen!

What Scares Mike Chen about this year's Ducks

1. The Complete Mighty Ducks

Picture this. You sit down and you really want to have a kick-ass marathon of the Mighty Ducks movie trilogy. You've got your shiny Mighty Ducks DVD and your old VHS copy of D3: The Mighty Ducks, but you don't own the second movie and you can't afford the gas to drive to Best Buy and pick it up. But halfway through your viewing of D3, a buddy calls and says that D2 is on the Disney channel RIGHT NOW so turn the channel immediately. That convoluted movie-viewing experience is kinda like what happened to the Ducks last season without Scott "My Captain C, Damn It!" Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne to start the season.

You take those guys out of the mix, add in some bad broadcast-on-cable-TV replacements like Todd Bertuzzi and Doug Weight and it's just a chemistry experiment gone awry. And while Scotty N played well upon his return, you could sense that something wasn't quite right with last season's Ducks, even from all the way up in the Bay Area. So now Brian Burke's guys have no off-ice distractions, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf are a year older, and the Norris Twins get a full 82 games together. Yeah, that's not good.

2. Brendan Morrison

Oh, stop laughing. I'm not talking Brendan Morrison by himself, I'm looking at what Brendan Morrison could possibly do for the rest of the team. Morrison's a playmaker. Teemu Selanne's a goal scorer. Goal scorers need playmakers to make them even better (see: Cheechoo, Jonathan). If Morrison clicks with Selanne in an Andy McDonald-minus-the-freakish-neck-muscles kind of way, that gives the Ducks two pretty strong forward lines. We know Perry and Getzlaf will get their points but what about secondary scoring?

Last season, I don't think I was the only person who laughed when Burke signed on Todd Bertuzzi's diminished scoring abilities. We know that Selanne still has it but if Teemu's got a partner that can actually dish him the puck, he becomes that much more of a threat. Teams with one scoring line don't usually accomplish much (hello Vancouver), but when you start spreading that around, that's when the proverbial shiznit hits the fan.

3. Pronger/Niedermayer

You could say that this point is an extension of the first one, but that one was really more about off-ice distractions and general roster discombobulation. This is about having two Norris-quality defensemen who can handle 30+ minutes a night, play special teams, send out a great outlet pass, and shut down the opposition's top scorer. With all due respect to the Detroit blueline, there's simply no team that can match what Anaheim can do -- that is, have one Norris-candidate on the ice at all times.

Put it this way -- the old adage of line matching doesn't work if you have either a healthy Pronger or Niedermayer on the ice. You can't try to avoid the shutdown defenseman because they're both capable of it. Hell, stick me out there with my limited beer-league skills and I'd still probably be a +30 for the year (Burkie, I'm a free agent and I'll sign for the league minimum). This combination scared me when Pronger first came to Anaheim and it still scares me today. And it's just not fair.

So that's our takes, looking trepidly at some of the new aspects of the opposing team. How about you, readers? What in particular this year scares you about facing either of these teams? Feel free to leave your own answers (even if you aren't a Ducks or Sharks fan) in the comments.

Prediction: Ducks 3, Sharks 1. Goals by Perry, Pahlsson, and Morrison. Just like in the Ducks opener of the 06-07 season, though, Rob Blake actually scores Corey Perry's goal. Adds Mike Chen, "By the way, Sleek's watching the game on Tivo so everyone text him 'Pronger broke his leg' intermittently."

Update 10:01: Mike sneaks in a prediction too: Sharks 4, Ducks 2. Goals by Marleau, Boyle, Roenick, and an empty netter by Grier. And soft crying in the rafters from Jeff Friesen.

p.s. I posted a PuckToon today that mixes metaphors about strange cap-motivated roster moves made throughout the Pacific Division. Enjoy!

[9:30 am edit -- even more Sleek guest appearances on the ol' internet! In addition to posting on James O'Brien's new blog, I was also a guest on the LCS Hockey Radio Show last night. I haven't even heard the whole thing, but feel free to give it a listen as we push through some technical difficulties, I hurriedly mis-describe Patrick O'Sullivan as "a poor man's Brian Rolston", and I pull a correct Caspian Sea trivia answer out of my ass.]

Go Ducks.

A Letter From Kent Huskins

Sup homies!

Huskins here. What's that? Don't know me? Oh don't worry, baby, you will. You see, Kent Huskins is a star. That's right, write that down and put it away. It'll be worth something in a few years. I'm the straw that stirs the drink for the Anaheim Super Ducks (that's a little name change I'm workin' on) and the preeminent mover and shaker on the blue line. I've been tied down my whole career, from the mean streets of Potsdam to the alleyways of Costa Mesa, but the reins are now off. Sean O'Donnell's gone and I feel for him, but it was inev... inevita... bound to happen. I needed to be free and he was in my way. Kent Huskins is like a locomotive: you're in the way and you're going to get traded to the Los Angeles Kings. With Sean gone, the road is wide open for Huskins Time.

#1 and counting...

What's that? Never heard of Huskins Time? Well, let's put it this way. When I get the puck behind the net, sometimes I hear a little voice whisper, "Go baby. Take it to the house. You got this, you're Kent Huskins, superstar." I can try to keep it under control, but once or twice a game I just have to be me. It's an itch I just have to scratch. I call it Huskins Time. I applied for a trademark, it should be coming any day now. You can hear me yell it when I streak down the ice if you're sitting close enough. It's not just hockey, I hear the voice everywhere I go. Some people don't like it, but I can't help it. Don't want me cutting in front of you in line at the market? "Sorry Ma'am, Huskins Time." Don't want me to go 120 on the 55? "But officer, it's Huskins Time." Don't want me to pop off so quickly, baby? "Sorry sweetheart... HUSKINS TIME!"

Check out my bling!

Some of the other defensemen can get frustrated when I dominate the other team. I think they're jealous. Chris Pronger is probably the most jealous of my subordinates but we're still friends. We have this running joke where I give him a wink after Huskins Time and he yells, "Stop going out of position, faggot!" Some people call us Thunder & Lightning, mostly when I pay them to. Scott Niedermayer, on the other hand, loves me. I volunteered a few moves to him the other day at practice and he thanked me by saying, "Oh really? I had no idea." He's a good guy. The only person that ever had a problem with my skillz was Ilya Bryzgalov, who used to always scream, "Fuck you doing, nutsnumb???" whenever I flew up the ice. He just couldn't see the glory of me. Naturally, he had to be dismissed because Kent Huskins can't possibly do what he does with those negative vibes. I'm sensitive.

Forget Ocho Cinco, what about... wait, what's #40 in Spanish?

So all you fantasy players, hockey enthusiasts, and ladies (*wink), take note: Kent Huskins has arrived. If you see a blur on your screen and a red light come on soon after, congratulations: you've just experienced Huskins Time (TM). Kent Huskins is 215 pounds of star and I'm about to burst into your homes. You're welcome.

Stay Smoove,
Kent Huskins

Random Pacific Questions: Should the Ducks be Feared?

Yes.

Of all the teams in the Pacific Division, I fear the Ducks the most. San Jose may have won the division last year and Dallas may have made it to the Conference Finals, but neither team would scare me as much as the Ducks in a series. Think about this: the Ducks played a quarter of their season without Scott Niedermayer and maybe 2/3 without Teemu Selanne; they had to trade their 2nd-line center to free up cap space; they had Todd Bertuzzi on their team; their 2nd best offensive player was injured for the last part of the season and the playoffs; and their captain was suspended for attempting emergency amputation on some asshole's foot.

And they finished 4th in the conference.

They weren't realistically going to go very far in the playoffs because they didn't have time to mesh last year, but that won't be a problem this season. The Ducks were the 2nd best defensive team in the league last year and losing Mathieu Schneider won't affect that ranking too much. They had trouble scoring last year but have added Brendan Morrison, Bobby Ryan, Teemu for the whole season, and a healthy Ryan Carter (who I thought was pretty awesome before he broke his wrist last season). More importnantly, they've dumped both Doug Weight and Todd Bertuzzi, 2 slow, bumbling forwards that were kind of embarrassing to watch. And of course, they still have the 2nd best young forward duo in Southern California in Getzlaf and Perry.


A lot of people get seduced by the Sharks or the Stars because they were the teams that made headlines last season. They've both added some pretty good pieces and will both likely make the playoffs, but if I'm another team in the NHL I'm praying that I get one of those teams instead of Anaheim in the playoffs. I think some people may be sleeping on the Ducks because they're eventually going to be average once Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne finally retire, but right now they're still incredibly talented. They have the best defense and the best goaltending in the division, two dynamic offensive players, and a shutdown line that could stop George Clooney from scoring. Fear the mallard, friends.

The Red Wings’ Biggest Rival: the Ducks? Here’s Five Reasons Why…

The Chief over at Abel to Yzerman has created a bit of a project to pass the summer dead time, trying to categorically determine who really represents Detroit’s best current rival. He starts his study with the Colorado Avalanche, the first of ten candidates, and scores them in six categories: Quality of Team, Hate Factor, Past Playoff Adventures, Blogger Quality, Regular Season Sadness Factor, and Miscellaneous. It’s a pretty decent set of criteria, and aside from Blogger Quality (Ducks bloggers are a bit shorthanded), Anaheim figures to score highly across the board.

Still, I think it’s worth writing up a case for the Ducks, though I should take a moment and clarify: in this post I am writing about the hatred of Red Wings fans, not who Ducks fans hate. Detroit’s rival search is much different from Anaheim’s, in that the Wings have been alone in the Central Division for so long that they need to their sights elsewhere. Go see Dan Wood for the Ducks rivalry question (bonus: my answer is in the first comment there)—we’ve still got plenty of options in the Pacific Division, with Detroit and Edmonton thrown in for fun.

Anyway, as promised, here's five reason why Wings fans should hate the web-footed ones, Five Guys Who Eliminated Detroit in their Last Two Playoff Meetings. Not many active NHLers can boast about eliminating the Red Wings in their last two tries, I think, and while this is by no means a complete list, I don’t think that it would get much longer with more research. It's a rare achievement, as Detroit has a 26-9 series record since the '94 lockout. Here's some Wing-killers, though:

1) J.S. Giguere: Really, this conversation should start and end with Jiggy and his 2003 upset sweep, but it’s worth talking about his 2007 series as well. In both series Giguere made just enough saves to win, but aside from that these series were quite different. Let’s take a look:

2003: I can’t stress enough how awesome the 2003 Wings were—hell, just look at their 12 forwards that postseason: Yzerman, Shanahan, Fedorov, Hull, Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Holmstrom, Robitaille, Larionov, Maltby, Draper, and McCarty. Heck, if they find a place for the Grind Line in the HHOF, this could end up being a list of eleven hall of famers plus Holmstrom. Sure enough, the Wings dominated play, outshooting the Mighty Ducks 171-120 in four-plus games (including a triple-OT and a single-OT). And yet, with all those snipers taking all those shots, they managed to score only six goals. Six. Goals. Giguere murdered in his playoff debut, sweeping the defending champs, which not only exorcised Anaheim’s playoff demons from the past (the Ducks were a combined 0-8 against Detroit in their first two postseasons), but also started a Cinderella run to the seventh game of the cup finals. And as impressive as Giguere’s later sweep of the Wild was (4 games, 1 GA), I really have to say that Minnesota represents his second-most impressive series of 2003. Giguere finished Round One with three first stars of the game and one second star. How sick is that?

2007: This was a different story completely, as the '07 Ducks were a much more formidable team in front of their netminder. Long gone were the days of getting murdered on the shot board, as were the days when Giguere had to be the unreal difference-maker. Still, the Red Wings were the top seed in the west, and were dominant especially on home ice and on special teams. Indeed, this was more a Goliath vs. Goliath battle than anything that had happened in 2003.

Giguere ended up with more saves in the four-game 2003 sweep than he made in the six-game 2007 win, and his save percentage wasn’t even in the same stratosphere (2003: .965, 2007: .908), but one thing that J.S. was able to duplicate against the Winged Wheel: overtime perfection. Combined, Giguere went to OT against the Wings four times, and four times he came away a winner. 46 Detroit OT shots. 46 Giguere OT saves.

2) Sammy Pahlsson: Another member of the 2003 and 2007 squads, Pahlsson remains the longest-serving Duck (his Anaheim debut was November 24, 2000, one day before Giguere’s) and of course has been my favorite player since well before this blog started. You want offense? Go buy a Selanne jersey. You want flash? Getzlaf is your guy. You want hard work, defensive positioning, and attention to detail? Welcome to the Pahlsson Party.

2003: In the first cup run, Pahlsson centered a line with 19-year-veteran Steve “Stumpy” Thomas and 19-year-old Stan “Cheesy” Chistov, which would prove to be a great source for secondary scoring throughout that playoff year. The Sammy line was a huge boost in the Detroit series, as that trio contributed 4 of Anaheim’s 10 goals scored in the series (including a really cheesy Cheesy goal in G3).

2007: By this time Sammy was the unquestioned shutdown center for the Ducks, on a “Nothing" Line with Travis Moen and Rob Niedermayer. It was a banner year for Pahlsson, who probably got robbed of both a Smythe and a Selke within weeks of each other, but as usual put up zero fuss. Against Detroit, he worked the most difficult minutes available against Zetterberg and Datsyuk, and even got the two split up in an attempt to escape the Swedish Shadow.

In each of Anaheim's long playoff years, Sammy ended up playing the defensive center position on my favorite line of the postseason. His point totals against Detroit weren't that stunning (5 points in 10 games), but he did finish each series a +2 while averaging more than 4.5 shorthanded minutes per game.

3) Rob Niedermayer: The last member of the “2003 and 2007” club, Rob also played a significant role in twice eliminating Detroit. In both years, he played wing on the shutdown line, but had surprisingly strong offensive numbers (well, at least for Rob) while playing against the Wings' best.

2003: In his first playoffs for the Ducks, Rob played on a shutdown line with Steve Rucchin and Mike Leclerc, and proved to be a really strong forechecker. I remember him being a fabulous "first man in" after a dumped puck; Rob's strength is really on the offensive boards. Rob got 3 assists in the 4 games, which in Rob terms is phenomenal. In his first 31 playoff games with the Panthers before 2003, Rob had 4 assists.

2007: While Rob’s biggest contribution to the post-lockout Ducks was probably being Scott’s brother, he was also a strong contributor on Pahlsson’s shutdown line, strong enough that the trio played together for all 103 games of that season/postseason. Rob scored 3 goals in the Wings series to lead the team, and even though one of them was an empty-netter, we'll see below the importance of being able to score on an empty net.

Despite his shut-down role, Rob’s actually had impressive points totals against the postseason Wings: in 10 games, he has scored 8 points (0.8 pts/gm). Over the rest of his Anaheim career, he has played 50 playoff games NOT against Detroit and scored 15 points (0.3 pts/gm). Of course, Rob has his drawbacks also – between the two series he played more than 18 minutes of power play time without being on the ice for a PPG-for, but that’s more of a bad-use-of-personnel issue than a knock on Rob.

4) Scott Niedermayer: With Scott, you have to go way back in the time machine to look at his first time eliminating Detroit – he was a third-year player playing in his first cup finals for the New Jersey Devils. Still, Scott is another player who is 2-0 lifetime against the Winged Wheel, and while he might not inspire the same level of hatred as a Giguere or a Pronger, he’s scored some awfully kick-to-the-nuts goals against the postseason Wings.

1995: Ah, remember the days when lockouts would only last part of a season? At any rate, the 1995 cup finals featured Niedermayer’s Devils and the Detroit Red Wings, who at that point were 40 years removed from their most recent championship. Scott and the rest of the smothering Devils continued that drought, dropping the Wings in four straight. Though Claude Lemieux would end up taking home the Conn Smythe, Niedermayer had an impressive finals, with a highlight-reel, end-to-end goal and three assists in the four-game sweep.

2007: And if you think that ’95 goal was a back-breaker, Scott got even more clutch a dozen years (and 127 playoff games) later. He scored two goals in the six-game ’07 WCF, and both turned out to be huge. Game Two in Detroit he scored the game-winner from down low in the 15th minute of overtime to tie the series at 1 game apiece (assists to Rob & Sammy). Then, late in regulation of Game Five, with the Wings up by a goal and Giguere pulled for a 6-on-4, Scott delivered the "kick to the groin": a weak shot that deflected off the stick of Nick Lidstrom and fluttered lazily over Hasek’s shoulder (1:15 into this video). That shot, more than anything, decided that coin-flip series in Anaheim’s favor, and was probably the strongest case for Niedermayer’s Conn Smythe win.

The craziest thing about Scott’s tendency for huge goals is that the guy is pretty mediocre at shooting pucks. He’s nowhere near Pronger or Lidstrom in this regard. Still, there’s a lot of benefit having a full-time rover, and sometimes his weak-sauce shot is exactly what is needed to disrupt a goalie’s rhythm. Scott might not be as despised by Wings fans like Giguere or Pronger, but it’s tough to argue the importance of the goals he’s scored.

5) Chris Pronger: Ah yes, Sasquatch (as they call him). Pronger is the only member on this list to ever get eliminated by the Red Wings (four times on the Blues, I believe), but he’s certainly had his comeuppance since the lockout. In fact, one could make a claim that one of the biggest differences between Detroit’s 2008 cup run from the two previous attempts was that this time they didn’t have to go through Pronger. Or his elbows.

2006: Pronger was a monster for the Oilers in ’06, as the Red Wings would learn early and the Ducks would find out two rounds later. He scored seven points in the six-game Detroit series and ended the series a +4. That began a 2003-like run for the 8th-seeded Oilers, who proceeded to eliminate the Sharks and the Ducks before bowing out in their own SCF G7. Pronger finished Round One with three first stars of the game and one second star. How sick is that?

2007: Pronger was much more muted offensively in the ’07 WCF, only recording three assists in five games played, but his defensive numbers more than made up for that. In the '07 series, Detroit didn't score a single even-strength or power-play goal while Pronger was on the ice. While that’s impressive enough, I doubt that’s what Red Wings fans remember most.

Get off my elbow, Homer.
There’s a real case to be made that Pronger was the best player in both the 2006 and 2007 playoffs. Except for the technicalities that in 2006 he was a cup-loser and in 2007 he was suspended twice, he could have been the first back-to-back Conn Smyther since Mario Lemieux. Against the Wings both those years, he scored 10 points in 11 games and was on the ice for 20 GF, 10 GA, all while averaging more than 32 minutes per game. And despite his reputation, against the Wings he only had eight minors (somehow Rob Niedermayer went to the box for five minutes after this play).



The Two-Time Wing Killers. Can they make it Three?
I know this piece got awfully long and if you’re still with me, congrats. Still, I think it was worth going through the stories of these two-time Wing-killers, because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of players who have such streaks going (the only other one I could come up with in very limited research is Sandis Ozolinsh, who eliminated the Wings in his last three meetings – ’99, ’00, and ’03).

Combined, these five Ducks players made huge contributions in eliminating the Wings in ’95, ’03, ’06, and ’07, and it’s not a huge stretch to think if they hadn’t, Detroit might have won as many as four additional Stanley Cups by now. And really, who wants to live in that alternate reality? (Wings fans are insufferable enough as is.)

There's still plenty of other reasons for Wings fans to hate the Ducks (I didn't even mention the yappy mouth of Corey Perry), but I think this fivesome might prove as strong a rivalry argument as any. I'm hopeful that Detroit fans found this post as angering to read as I found it pleasing to write, because you know what that means. They'll be licking their lips for the next matchup, their chance for postseason revenge.

Welcome to the rivalry, Wings fans. Go Ducks.

Trade Possibilities to Keep the Anaheim Ducks Under the Salary Cap

It is already official that the Ducks will have to trade someone this offseason if veteran defenseman Scott Niedermayer and forward Teemu Selanne decide to come back to the team after contemplating retirement.

Although the jury is still out, the rumored players to be on the chopping block are:

Todd Bertuzzi – a power forward that did not live up to expectations after his first year in Anaheim. He is currently expected to make $4 million this up-coming season which at 32 and production down makes him an easy trade for Anaheim to a team looking for help. He could draw interest from teams such as Florida, Columbus and who knows where else.

Ken’s take: I was really disappointed with Bertuzzi, he had a hard adjustment to Orange County, but I don’t think he will be Burke’s first option to trade. I look for him to remain in Anaheim.

Todd Marchant – a grinding forward making $2.66 million in 08/09. He was a huge help to the Ducks in winning the Stanley Cup, but is not a huge producer, even for a 33 year old. Not as notable a trade target as Bertuzzi but still would be good for a team.

Ken’s take: Marchant is the third most likely in this list to be traded. He is a good player and doesn’t make much of a dip into the cap. His age is a slight issue, but nothing too serious

Mathieu Schneider – a great offensive defenseman, and was brought in last season to replace Scott Niedermayer during his retirement phase, instead when Niedermayer returned Schneider added great depth on the blue line. His offensive talent saw him light the lamp often in one of final regular season game against the Kings. At 38, Schneider is the oldest player on the Ducks team, and will be collecting $5.75 million in 08/09. Schneider seems likely to be the player the Ducks most want to get rid of. The $5.75million would be nice to have back in the bank.

Ken’s take: If Schneider is the one subtracted from the team, the Ducks could trade for a defenseman worth half as much, and spend the remaining money on Teemu Selanne, and signing another forward or defenseman. The Ducks know they need to improve some small issues over last season such as goal scoring, and with that $5.75 million back, it seems best. Schneider’s age has me wondering why he isn’t one contemplating retirement, as he is older than Niedermayer (33) and Selanne (37).

All three of these players would be good choices, and Brian Burke will certainly get the best deal possible for his team. Before any decisions are made though the Ducks need to know the return status of Teemu and Scott, which is the only way the trade will truly matter.

For example: If both leave the team, then Burke only needs to worry about obtaining enough money for Corey Perry and getting that money should be fairly easily done with a small trade.

Source: Salary figures came from nhlnumber.com

More Number-Crunching with Scott

I'm in a bit of a rush today, but I did want to throw down a few more numbers around Scott Niedermayer's return to the lineup last year, even though he apparently doesn't need to give Brian Burke a retirement decision until July 1st now. I also made Burke's deadline the topic of this week's PuckToon, although I certainly could have drawn Scott a bit better -- in my cartoon he is being played by Adrien Brody.

Here's a table that shows the main five non-Niedermayer defensemen, and their even-strength performance before and after Scott's December debut:

Even-Strength Plus-Minus Before & After Scott Niedermayer

(click on image to enlarge)You'll note that in terms of even-strength play, inserting Scott at the top of the Anaheim blueline had a huge impact on the outscoring success of three players in particular -- Frenchie Beauchemin, Chris Pronger, and Sean O'Donnell.

For Pronger and O'Donnell, I think the improvement mostly stems from the sharing of tough minutes, no longer being the only shutdown option on the blueline. Really Scott's return enabled the team structure to go back to what worked so well for them in their 2007 cup run: a Norris defenseman covering most of the critical minutes, while a third pairing cleaned up on easy minutes.

It's a bit odd that Schneider and Huskins saw their outscoring productivity drop post-Niedermayer, but it wasn't a huge difference, and with Huskins in particular it could be attributed to additional even-strength minutes, freeing the superstar d-men to also manage the special teams minutes. While their numbers are very solid, it's important to remember that this system used to work with Huskins and Dipenta, who is roughly $5M cheaper than Schneidermayer.

I did want to focus a bit on Francois Beauchemin's play, however, who has spent nearly his entire career letting Scott cover his ass. You can see that Frenchie in particular struggled without Scott (and was redeemed upon Scott's return), and I think a lot of that stems from the bad habits that developed under Scott's tutelage. I've drawn a little schematic to the right to demonstrate this.

Normally, when a puck gets dumped behind two defensemen, it's likely a 50-50 split which defenseman will go retrieve the puck, depending on what side of the net the puck is directed. For Scott and Frenchie, though, they've developed something like a 80-20 split, where Beauchemin gets only the very close dump-ins and expects his fleet-footed partner to gather the rest. I remember watching a Scott-less Beauchemin very carefully in the opening 34 games, and to my eyes I could spot this happening to poor spoiled Frenchie -- he was so used to not retrieving pucks that he'd often leave his defensive partner with silly responsibilities that only a guy like Niedermayer could make look effortless.

I'm not blaming Beauchemin for anything, really -- if my back was always covered I'm sure I'd develop bad habits also, but that's another reason I really want Scott to return; he not only helps other defensive pairs manage their minutes better but also carries bad-habit Beauchemin into respectable results. Someday Frenchie is going to have to re-learn his puck responsibilities when paired with an average partner, but I don't want it to happen this year.

So that's a bit more on Scott's roster impact, at least at even strength. I'll close with a lame analogy, mainly designed to incorporate a crazy e-mail image that my dad forwarded to me. Scott's so valuable on the ice that putting him at the top of a lineup makes an ugly dude like Albert Einstein look like a beautiful blonde like Marilyn Monroe:

Step away from your screen to see some crazy-ass magic eye effect.
Insanity. Go Ducks.

Sleek's 2nd Annual Anti-Retirement Plea

Well, it's time I got down to business: Just like last summer, Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne stand undecided as to whether they will retire or not. Just like last summer, Scott is under contract while Teemu is an unrestricted free agent. Unlike last summer, though, Brian Burke has given them a draft-day deadline to make their commitments.

Let's open this discussion with a statsy look at the 2007-08 Ducks season, broken down into four segments, with explanations below:

Segment	GP	Record	Win%	GF - GA = GD	PP - PK
1	34	15-15-4	.500	2.4 - 2.8 = -0.4	15.5% - 78.8%
2	22	12-7-3	.614	2.3 - 2.0 = +0.3	17.2% - 87.4%
3	17	13-3-1	.794	2.7 - 1.6 = +1.1	17.3% - 86.4%
4	15	9-6-0	.600	2.2 - 2.5 = -0.3	20.3% - 79.5%

Segment 1 is the first 34 games of the season played without Niedermayer or Selanne. It is a bit skewed by travel, however, as it opens with a six games in five cities in twelve nights stretch where the Ducks flew 11,667 miles, which is pretty far even for an actual duck. It is also skewed because it featured 17 games of Mark Mowers in a scoring role, which was predictably awful (and frankly, contributed to the trading of Andy Mac). The Segment 1 team was fairly mediocre, with some obvious excuses. The penalty kill was atrocious, with no real excuses.

Segment 2 marks the return of Scott Niedermayer, which sparked a phenomenal turnaround for the Ducks. This segment is a bit skewed because it ends with the infamous "Six Games of Suck", when the Ducks scored only five goals in six straight losses after starting the new Niedermayer era 12-2-2. Still, for the most part the team stats were vastly improved, especially the defense and the penalty-killing.

Segment 3 marks the return of Teemu Selanne, who at least saw an end to that offensive drought. This is the stretch that I really turn to when I want to defend against naysayers who think that the moves Brian Burke made last year were shit. If you look at Segments 2 and 3, it's a top-notch team, and Scott and Teemu were probably the two best players over that stretch. Burke certainly had to jump through hoops to enable their returns, but it’s tough to argue with these results, at least.

Segment 4 begins with the first game of Chris Pronger's suspension, and includes the short postseason. This is a sort of sloppy cut, because the Ducks were able to go 7-2 to end the regular season, but Pronger's absence did I think sort of derail the team in preparing for its cup defense. This segment also signifies the injury to Corey Perry, which was also a huge factor and occurred just a few games before. I probably shouldn't have included the playoff games, but they did feature both Niedermayer and Selanne.

I apologize if I've over-explained these segments, but it was a complicated year. Last season's Ducks had lots of lineup variations and strange storylines, which is a far cry from the cup-winning year. That year, stability was the norm: eight of the top ten Ducks forwards played in all 103 games. Still, I did want to break out these segments to make a few quick points regarding Scott, Teemu, their importance to the Ducks, and the ugly monster known as retirement.

1. Scott and Teemu certainly can still play, contribute, and win. They were probably the two most impressive Ducks to me last year, both in sheer talent and in their ability to fix a bleeding lineup. I think I’m going to do a separate post about the contributions of each of them, but here’s the gist: by inserting talent at the top of the lineup, defensemen and forwards were able to fall into more logical roles, and the Ducks’ performance improved dramatically.

Even more so, I'd add that their delayed seasons weren't the problem at all with the Ducks’ early exit last year. It certainly hurt when Andy Mac and Breezy were squeezed out, but I'd argue that the delayed seasons by Niedermayer and Selanne helped the Ducks' chances of repeating. It enabled a roster to be assembled by the postseason that probably wasn't affordable for a full 82-game schedule.

Of the two, I’d argue that just like last summer, the retirement decision of Niedermayer means more to the success of next year’s team. You can read through my Mr. Incredible post to see some of the statistical impact of his return, but the difference between a one-Norris team and a two-Norris team is incredible; two years ago Pronger vastly improved a Niedermayer-led blueline, and last year Scott returned the favor. I don’t mean to undersell the importance of Teemu, a master in the offensive end and on the power play, but if I had to pick one player to return, it’d be Scott.

2. I don’t think either player retires this week, but I’m an optimist. I have no insider information, and I know a lot of Ducks fans have different theories, but I just keep coming back to this fact: here are two guys who had something like six months to get off the retirement fence last year, and neither one could make the call to end their careers early. Why should I expect that their inability to retire has changed, especially given their excellent play last season?

I know that squeezing them into this year’s budget will be a hurdle, but I think both players have a strong sense of their on-ice importance to the Ducks, and I suspect we’ll see both re-assume their roles for training camp.

3. If Scott does not retire, it’s time to move Schneider. He was my first choice to be shipped out when Scott unretired last year, as it didn’t really make sense to keep both Scott and his apparent replacement, especially at their salary levels. I don’t want to overly knock “Schneidermayer”, who even took home some wayward Norris Trophy votes for his easy-minute dominance, but here’s the reality:

Giguere is making $6M, and Pronger and Niedermayer combine for another $13M, and assuming they’re all willing to play, none of them are going anywhere. Schneider’s additional $5.625M salary commitment becomes excessive at that point, because frankly, there’s not that many more minutes available for him to earn or exceed his dollar value. Instead, that money is needed to shore up the forward ranks, both in paying Getzlaf and Perry’s raises, as well as finding some scratch to pay UFA Selanne.

In a lot of ways, the Ducks are painted into a corner in what they can do this offseason—if Niedermayer and Selanne are in next year’s plans, there are more salary commitments than the Ducks can afford, and we may see Brian Burke get trade-active on draft day (“I’ll trade you the rest of that sandwich for Todd Bertuzzi.”). Still, I’m pretty excited for what next year’s squad can do, in what might be the swan song for the Niedermayer-and-Pronger Ducks. I still can’t believe how fortunate we’ve been to see these two different-style all-stars patrol the blue line the last couple of years, and if there’s one more shot at seeing it, I’m fully aboard.

More stats-crunching and salary-talking to come as these retirement decisions become known, but for now, Go Ducks.

Game 4: the first DVR-enhanced recap

I meant to post my thoughts last night, but was unable. Here's a grand assortment of what I wrote in my crusty little notebook while zooming through the Stars-Ducks Game 4:

• Todd Bertuzzi either needs to retire or go to Sweden, because he's a waste of life. I remember someone hit an outlet pass to Bertuzzi to set up a 2 on 1. Normally, I'm about to pass out when a team has a 2 on 1. But since it was Bertuzzi, it was easy as a Sunday morning.

Naturally, the play resulted in a flimsy, useless shot.

• Razor Reaugh was in playoff form on the mic in Game 4. There were many gems from the verbose one, but there were two moments that were particularly special:

When Stu Barnes fed Steve Ott for the Stars' third goal, Reaugh said "the architect to the plunderer." And when Chris Pronger was predictably receiving jeers from Stars fans, he said such a sound "might as well be on his iPod." Good stuff.

• Was the Ducks' team meal at Pei Wei or something? Sluggish city.

• Honestly, something seemed wrong with Scott Niedermayer too. I'd say he should retire, but I'll never get tired of watching Lightningbeard skate. His skating style reminds me of those chocolate bar commercials when they drizzle the chocolate onto nougat.

If that's not a compliment I don't know what is.

• Doug Weight was completely invisible. If no one else, Dead Weight needs to hang 'em up.

• If the Stars pull off an amazing Cup run, Brendan Morrow is the odds-on favorite to win the Conn Smythe. He's been a beast.

• It's always uncomfortable to watch a go-nowhere powerplay. You know the ones I'm talking about: when your team cannot even get the friggin' puck past the blue line. Those always flash me back to those awkward moments in high school when the teacher asks the class a question ... and not a single person raises a hand. Bad times.

• Special teams made the difference in this series. The Stars scored four powerplay goals in Game 1; two in Game 2; two in Game 3 and none in Game 4. The Stars scored more than half of their goals (8 of 14) on the man advantage.
  

• To give the Brad Richards trade a fair chance, you simply have to look past his $7.8 million contract. He'll never live up to that, but he does give the Stars an added dimension of creativity. Now the Stars need to give him a solid winger in free agency, because it's clear that his current line mates struggle to finish the great chances he sets up.

• Marty Turco posted a spiritual shutout, garbage goal be damned.

• I thought that if the Stars won this series, they would need to prove a lot. I never thought the Ducks would barely show up. I guess gooning it up takes a lot out of you these days...But we'll see if they have one last gasp of energy. The Stars have to treat the Ducks like a horror movie villain: keep killing them until they stop moving.
  

Mr. Incredible!

I'm going to be doing a Ducks-Stars series preview for Fanhouse on Wednesday, so I don't want to delve to much into that matchup just yet, but in updating my spreadsheets and going through the Ducks' season, I found some pretty incredible numbers about unretirement advocate Scott Niedermayer.

Pre-Niedermayer Ducks: 34 GP, 96 GA, 2.82 GA/gm
Post-Niedermayer Ducks: 48 GP, 88 GA, 1.83 GA/gm
(note: no shootout goals here)

The second segment has 41% more games than the first segment, and yet 8% fewer goals-allowed. In fact, if you prorate that second segment to 82 games, that projects to only 150 GA, which would have won last year's Jennings by some 34 goals and this year's by some 29 (I say "some" because I don't know if shootouts count or not). Whatever. It's a huge margin.

Most evident in that goal-a-game improvement is penalty killing: the Ducks allowed 41 power play goals before Scott's return and only 28 post-Niedermayer. Percentage-wise, the penalty killing improved from 78.8% to 86.7%, and the Ducks were shorthanded less frequently as well. Times-shorthanded-per-game improved from 5.7 to 4.4 (boy it's nice to have a diplomat on the ice).

The end result I think can be seen on these pie charts that apologetically carry a misleading title. Really, these pie charts sort and tally games according to the number of goals that opponents score. Before Scott's return, the Ducks held opponents to 2 goals or less 44% of the time. After Scott's return, they managed that feat 77% of the time.

Now I do want to throw a strong caution around all these glowing statistics: it isn't the case that Scott Niedermayer by himself is that good (or really, that much better than Pronger); there's a lot of factors to consider in these numbers. For one, the start of the year was a rough one; the team fought through early-season injuries to Giguere, Pahlsson, Schneider, and Bertuzzi, not to mention a crazy travel schedule coming out of London. Also, the quality of goaltending certainly improved as the year went on, both from Giguere and newcomer Hiller. There was going to be some improvement in Anaheim's numbers no matter what Scott did.

Still, it does carry home a point about how inserting talent at the top of the roster can dramatically improve a squad, as we saw last year when the Ducks acquired Pronger. It's not necessarily that Niedermayer can get better results in a shut-down role than Pronger (or vice versa), but rather that in one of them carrying that load, all the rest of the blueline gets to adjust to an easier role. When Niedermayer supports the Pahlsson line, the Pronger pairing and the Schneider pairing get minutes against lesser scorers, and as a result the team picks up wins.

Now I'm not promoting any half-season Hart Trophy or anything, but I do think it's a stunning set of statistics that provide the prevailing story of the Ducks' season, and why they performed so well in the last two quarters of Fenwick's tables. Short answer: Scott is Mr. Incredible.

Here's the kicker. Since Scott's return December 16, the Ducks have continued to score at a dismal rate of 2.42 goals per game, which ranks 26th out of 30 teams since that date. Yet their defense has been so incredibly stingy that their goal differential (+0.58 G/gm) ranks 4th in the league over the same stretch. The shaky offense does make the Ducks a tough team to figure out this spring, but the blueline certainly demands respect. More to come in the Fanhouse preview Wednesday (be warned, I will be regurgitating some of this info).

[EDIT: Bloggers covering different playoff teams wrote in for a Pensblog Playoff Preview, and I covered the Ducks, though mostly using material I've covered here before. Still, the cartoon is new!]

[EDIT 2: This guy beat BoC and four other blogs in the NCAA basketball contest, and will at some point be writing a gloat post to educate us all on Cal Bears football. But hey, we weren't last!]

Go Ducks.

Great hockey un-retirements

Unless you suffered from a 24-hour coma, you've probably heard the news that Brett Favre retired from the game of football.

The first thing I did after I learned the news from Satan Skip Bayless and the WWL crew was send my buddy a text message that compared Favre to Tupac (faking his [football] death, not having a blood feud with an obese East Coast rival).

Not soon after, my thoughts turned to the great hockey un-retirements...which made me realize just how much more I have to learn about hockey history.*

In fact, I'd like to make an open challenge to NHL history guru Joe Pelletier to educate us young 'uns about the sure-to-be myriad hockey returns I don't know about. But for the sake of brevity, let me run briefly through the ones that come to mind and give each one a snarky rating at the end.

The near-simultaneous Teemu and Niedermayer de-tirements

Obviously since these "returns" happened just this year, we won't know where each reemergence ranks in hockey history until the playoffs take place. But I think I speak for non-Ducks fans everywhere when I call these returns "glorified vacations." Or, lame.

Rating: Somewhere between the trade-enforced return of Keith Van Horn and whenever oblivious 80's teen movie parents return from their vacation early to stumble upon their children's massive keg party.

Saku Koivu defeats cancer

There's a lot to like about Koivu, but most of all you really have to marvel at the guy's resiliency. If it weren't for the fact that Mario Lemieux won a friggin' Hart Trophy while recovering from chemo therapy, I think Koivu would get more credit for his stunning recovery. I also recall a player coming back from cancer in the late '90s, but his name escapes me. I'm definitely going to kick myself for forgetting his name.
Rating: A partial Lance Armstrong.

Mario Lemieux's return

Has there been a more special return, considering their run to the Eastern Conference Finals and the fact that both Jagr and Lemieux were in the top-3 in Hart Trophy voting that year? Of all the experiences in my life, I think that playoff/regular season run might be the moment I will never be able to judge objectively.

Rating: Jordan returning from baseball...and the world deleting any memory of his time wearing a Wizards jersey.

Gordie Howe's 5 million returns

The Gordie Howe hat trick might be one of Howe's lasting legacies, but the guy had more hockey lives than a cat. Any time you see some boxer keep coming back or witness some legend foolishly trying to rekindle the magic of the past, just point to Howe.

He played on a line with his SONS!

Rating: No comparison. Also, doesn't he sort of look like Chris Cooper in that photo? Gordie Howe kicks ass. He might be hockey's Ditka.

* I would like to mention that I didn't forget Ken Dryden, who might be the only hockey player to ever leave the sport early...for his education. If you consider yourself a good hockey fan and even slightly enjoy reading, "The Game" is absolutely required reading. This is non-negotiable.

What do you do with Six Games of Suck?

Well, the Ducks are looking reminiscent of last year's championship squad, even with the current injury to center Doug Weight. They've won their last five games in regulation, outscoring opponents 14-5, and have just concluded an eight-game road trip before enjoying the next seven games at home.

Still, there is the matter of the Six Games of Suck™, auspiciously inserted in the middle of their Niedersurgence. Below is a segmented look at the Ducks' season-to-date. Note that Scott Niedermayer made his debut in Game 35, while Teemu Selanne made his debut in Game 57.

Game No.	GP	Record	GF – GA = GD	Power Play	Penalty Kill
1 – 34	34	15-15-4	+2.38 – 2.82 = -0.44	24/155 15.5%	41/193 78.8%
35 – 50	16	12-2-2	+2.88 – 1.63 = +1.25	14/67 20.9%	8/69 88.4%
51 – 56	6	0-5-1	+0.83 – 3.00 = -2.17	2/26 7.7%	4/26 84.6%
57 – 61	5	5-0-0	+2.80 – 1.00 = +1.80	3/15 20.0%	2/22 90.9%

Games 51 - 56 represent those Six Games of Suck™, where the Ducks' offense and defense struggled mightily. Now on the surface, this somewhat resembles what happened in a 2-7-2 stretch with last year's team, but last year came with easier explanations: concurrent injuries to J.S. Giguere, Ilya Bryzgalov, Chris Pronger, Francois Beauchemin, and Todd Marchant made the lineup much more laughable. This year, however, the lineup wasn't altered to any great degree; suddenly the team just turned terrible. In four of the six games, the Ducks surrendered the first three goals of the game.

Towards the end of that stretch, an explanation was offered: the flu. Now I'm not a guy who buys into that sort of excuse very easily, but looking at the wildly different results coming from essentially the same roster, it does seem to have some credibility. Still, I'm a fan who's trying to decide how good this current Ducks team is, and part of that is determining how much the Six Games of Suck™ matter. A pure optimist would drop those games as a non-representative hiccup, and offer that the Ducks should be 17-2-2 since Niedermayer's return, outscoring opponents 60-31. A skeptic would keep those six games in the mix, and say that the Niedermayer Ducks are 17-7-3, outscoring opponents 65-49.

It's a petty argument, really, deciding whether the Ducks are truly great or merely very good. Your thoughts are welcome in the comments, but I'll close on this note: even if I include the Six Games of Suck™, since Niedermayer's return on Dec. 16, the Ducks own the league's best defense (1.81 goals-allowed per game) and the league's best penalty kill (88.0%). It's taken a while, but Anaheim now looks very capable of defending their title (though playoffs are always a crapshoot), something I wouldn't have said with much gusto before Scott's return.

Go Ducks.

Finnish Flashback

I don't have time today to write an excellent post on this subject yet, but I did make a nice graphic. Anyways, per TSN, Teemu Selanne has come to terms with the Ducks on a contract for the remainder of the season and should be re-joining the team this week.

There's probably two major points I want to bring up, for starters, and I'll delve a little more into these on later posts:

• First off, in terms of salary cap management, the delayed season starts for Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne do wonders for Anaheim's postseason roster; quite frankly the Ducks should ice a pricier playoff team than they could have afforded for an entire regular season. If I were a rival fan, I'd probably be pissed. I mean, it's all well within the rules of the CBA (as Oiler fans loved to bring up during criticisms of the Dustin Penner offer sheet, or Devils fans with the Alexander Mogilny demotion), but it still was an advantage for Anaheim only—neither player was considering any other teams, it seems. And even if other teams wanted to engineer such a cap trick to their own advantage, it seems unlikely that they'd be able to pull it off with two such future hall-of-famers and difference-makers. I'm not really ready to put Brian Burke up for GM-of-the-year yet (he got a clear advantage in Scott & Teemu's one-team focus), but it is still very impressive the way he was able to manage salaries and keep availability for both players, even to the ridiculous point where the Ducks will ice both players and their offseason replacements.



• Even though I expect rival fans to be irrationally bitter about this, there will still be valid complaints about what this means for the integrity of the league and its regular season. While everything that's transpired has been CBA-legitimate and seems sincere, any time the league's best players are voluntarily not playing in regular season games, that's bad news—even if it does end up serving the player and team's playoff interests. Even though I believe both players were genuinely considering retirement (as opposed to just milking a CBA loophole), the fact remains that the retirement loophole has now been explored and demonstrated; should the Ducks succeed this postseason it will be very interesting to see if any other player or team tries to mimic this formula, and if so, whether the league will act to try to curb it.

So, good for the Ducks' cap situation and bad for the league. And really, before we go claiming how successful the semi-retirement strategy is for a team, we really should see how the Ducks end up finishing this season and playoffs; a lot of people see the roster upside here without really recognizing the desperate straits the Ducks were in before the first of their wafflers came home. It's still going to be a tight points battle down the western conference stretch, one that perhaps a full-year Ducks squad might have been able to avoid, but at least now the Ducks have two more superweapons in their arsenal.

Feel free to comment on either of these issues in the comments, or if you like, tell me what your fully-healthy Anaheim forward lines would look like with a dressed Selanne (and Pahlsson).

Ducks Gameday—A prehistoric suggestion

Anaheim Ducks (25-17-6, 3rd in west) at Nashville Predators (22-19-4, 12th in west)

It occurred to me after making the cartoon below that the saber-toothed fossil that inspired the Predator name and logo was found in a cave, not dug out from tar pits, but what am I, a prehistorian?

Hint: black = tar.
A few weeks ago, I called my dad out for having a crazy notion: could Scott Niedermayer win a half-season Hart? Well, he's happy to have pointed out to me that he's not alone in this lunacy, now there's an ESPN writer who's got his back (I hesitate to tell him what I think about ESPN's hockey expertise).

In the linked article, Damien Cox isolates Niedermayer in Anaheim and goalie Ty Conklin in Pittsburgh as two guys who have been inserted into lineups and turned mediocre results into top-tier results, and that's certainly commendable. But is either player really the most valuable on his own team? Even as these teams continue to accumulate wins, is Scott more valuable than Pronger, and is Conklin more valuable than Crosby? It's a tricky question because it's easy to confuse order with importance, but feel free to win me over in the comments. At any rate, the Duck / Penguin resurgence is the topic of my latest PuckToon at Fanhouse (link won't work until 11 am publish time).

Prediction: This is the last matchup of the season for these two teams, and the home squad has won the first three. Ducks buck the trend and win on the road tonight. Ducks 5, Preds 2. Goals by Perry x2 (happy now?), Bochenski, Carter, and Pronger. For some Nashville perspective, go see the Forechecker.

Go Ducks.

Ducks Gameday—The Prongermayer Record

Dallas Stars (25-17-5, 3rd in west) at Anaheim Ducks (24-17-6, t-4th in west)

Since the Ducks acquired Chris Pronger in the summer of 2006, they have played a total of 150 games -- 129 regular season plus 21 playoffs. In the 95 games that have featured both Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger, they are 45 games above .500. In the 55 games that have only featured one of them, they are 2 games above .500. Of course there are some factors to consider (Pronger missed time while Giguere and Beauchemin were injured, and Scott missed the whole hangover thing), but still the record when both are available is impressive:

Both Chris and Scott:
95 gp, 63-18-14, .737 win%, 3.01 GF, 2.09 GA, PP 20.6%, PK 85.2%

Only one of them:
55 gp, 25-23-7, .518 win%, 2.60 GF, 2.76 GA, PP 17.6%, PK 81.9%

When it comes to Norris captains, 1 + 1 = awesome.
The Stars come to town tonight having outscored the Niedermayerless Ducks a combined 10-2 in the first three meetings of the year; the Ducks haven't scored an even-strength goal in the season series yet. Still, the Ducks have gone 6-0-1 over their last seven home games, and are making early season issues seem pretty distant.

And with winning ways comes luck. As cheesy as Weight's tying goal was off Semenov's foot, you know what it reminded me of? A late-game, cheesy tying goal in G5 against Detroit off Lidstrom's shaft. Bounces and breaks come and go, but it's nice to have 'em hit you in key moments.

Prediction: This game ends a favorable stretch in the schedule. After tonight, the Ducks will play 12 of 13 on the road, with only a home date with the Red Wings to break the madness. Ducks 3, Stars 1. Goals by Schneider, Getzlaf, and Moen. Pahlsson probably won't play, but he still scores in spirit.

Go Ducks.