Orange County Register

Few expected the Kings to be atop the Pacific Division as of this morning. Absolutely no one expected Phoenix to be sitting right behind them. Meanwhile, San Jose has shaken off its sluggish start and Dallas is beginning to find itself under new coach Marc Crawford. 

The Ducks? Well, we’ve chronicled often over the past few days why they’re one of the NHL’s biggest disappointments thus far. The problem is while they try to get themselves in order, every other team in the division is already pulling away.

Only 10 games into the season, the Ducks (3-6-1) find themselves at least nine points behind everyone else. As for the Western Conference, only Minnesota has fewer points (six).

If you’re wondering, the players are noticing that they’re falling behind.

“There’s a lot of teams that are playing very well right now and we’re not one of them,” said winger Corey Perry, who has a team-leading 11 points. ”We haven’t played a full 60 minutes of hockey in a complete night and that’s what we need to do. We need to go out there and do that. Let everything else take care of itself.

“Teams are winning around the league. They’re starting to creep away so we’ve got to pick up our socks and get back in that win column.”

Ducks coach Randy Carlyle saw no need to put any more pressure on a team whose once-confident nature has taken a beating.

“Any time when you’re team’s winless in four, specifically in your own building, the pressure’s there,” Carlyle said. ”It’s going to be applied and it probably is applied from within more so than it is from the exterior. … You’ve got to try to have a calming effect versus adding gasoline to the fire.”

However, the Ducks do realize that it’s hard to make up points in the standings at any time of the season. Better to do it now than to have to do it later — like the end of last season.

“It’s early,” Perry said. ”But you let it slide, you let it slide and you let is slide and all of a sudden you’ve got 20 games left. We need the wins. We need to go out and get the points. We need whatever we can get. We’ve just got to go out there and prove it to everybody.”

As for tonight, centers Todd Marchant and Ryan Carter are expected to be in against the Canucks. Marchant has taken two nasty hits already this season, including one from Toronto’s Lee Stempniak on Monday night, but it hasn’t kept the veteran from the lineup. Carter returns following a three-game absence due to a bone bruise on his left foot suffered when he was hit by a teammate’s shot prior to the Dallas game last week.

Jonas Hiller will be back in the net, backed up by Justin Pogge as Jean-Sebastien Giguere continues to rest a strained groin muscle. Giguere did work out after the skate.

Here’s the expected line combinations and defense pairings to start tonight’s game:

Joffrey Lupul-Ryan Getzlaf-Corey Perry

Bobby Ryan-Saku Koivu-Teemu Selanne

Matt Beleskey-Todd Marchant-Petteri Nokelainen

Mike Brown-Ryan Carter-George Parros

Scott Niedermayer-Brendan Mikkelson

Ryan Whitney-James Wisniewski

Nick Boynton-Steve Eminger

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