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Hard road ahead for Ducks

November 9th, 2009, 7:00 am · 3 Comments · posted by Curtis Zupke, Staff writer

The last time the Ducks were about to embark on a daunting road trip, the season had just started and the standings were not a pressing issue. Coyotes Ducks Hockey

One month later, they find themselves in a sizeable hole as they prepare for their second big sequence away from home.

After a 4-3 victory Saturday over Phoenix (right) that closed a set of nine of 10 games at Honda Center, the Ducks were 13th in the Western Conference standings.

They took Sunday off and will resume practice today before they leave Tuesday for a four-game trip. Those three idle days means that by the time they take the ice against New Jersey on Wednesday, they could be 14 points behind San Jose in the Pacific Division.

As a team that was in 12th place in mid-March and needed a 10-2-1 run to make the last postseason, the Ducks don’t need to be reminded of the value of two points.

“You don’t want to look back at the end of the year and (see that) you’re missing the playoffs by three points,” defenseman James Wisniewski said.

“And thinking that in two of those games, if you would have just bore down and got a win… that you’d miss the playoffs by that little amount.

You’d think we’d want to get a good jump start on the season. Now we go on a tough road trip. Four games in six days. I think that might be a good thing for us because of how well we’re playing …To go on the road and pump out four games and see what we can do.”

The Ducks defeated top-tier Eastern Conference teams Boston and Philadelphia on a four-game road trip last month. This next away series features perennial power New Jersey, Columbus and then Stanley Cup Finals opponents Pittsburgh and Detroit.

“This isn’t a picnic we’re going on next week,” Coach Randy Carlyle said.

“It’s going to be a tough trip. We’re going to have to prepare ourselves in the best possible manner.”

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 3 Comments

  • JohnP says:
    November 9, 2009 at 10:13 am

    The Leafs beat up the Red Wings so I’m not too concerned about them. I think the Devils will take us and we’ll put up another good fight against the Pens but they’ll take that game too. We’re seeing better play from the ducks so far. The D is clicking as it appears the defensive pairings are meshing well. We’re still making horrible mistakes in our own zone! Getz has to move to the net unless he wants to only be a play maker and let Bobby R and Corey P be the scorers. He still seems to be playing at a diminished capacity. The 2nd line is looking better but Joffery L has dropped some from the score sheet. Go get’em on the road trip ducks!!!

  • Alisa says:
    November 9, 2009 at 11:59 am

    Agreed. We’re looking better, but there’s certainly room for improvement. On the second line, the chemistry between Selanne and Koivu seems to be coming along. But Lupul still looks a bit lost out there with the two of them. The 3rd and 4th line look pretty solid right now. They aren’t being defensive liabilities and they are chipping in with some offense. I agree that Getzlaf still looks a half-step behind. He certainly seems hesitant to move to the center of the ice and drive the net. If he’s not going to be a threat to score, then the line becomes a little less effective.

    PK is coming along nicely, as compared to the beginning of the season. The D is looking more comfortable out there. But there are times where we still get hemmed down in our zone and have trouble battling to clear the puck. I think we need to focus on that a bit more.

    Also, sometimes our decision making seems pretty poor. The Getzlaf pass up the middle in our own D zone that led to the Phoenix goal was horrific. If we could clean up those mental lapses, I’d be much happier and confident in our play.

  • czhokej says:
    November 9, 2009 at 9:40 pm

    Getz was supposed to be our best player, and look at his stats: 1 goal only. Yes, 14 passes, because he plays with Perry and Ryan, and on PP, but we need him to score goals.
    Moving Brown to the third line somehow made our fourth line look bad. In fact they played only 5 min. during the last game. With the two big men on the ice together, there was quite a bit of confusion there.
    Koivu looked better against the Predators, however against the Coyotes most of his passes were intercepted and timing was off again. Our top two centers will have to elevate their game, otherwise we will be still losing too many games.