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Cup Hangover Tops List of Struggles by Karen Francis Hockeytalk.biz December 5, 2007 -- ANAHEIM -- The Ducks are struggling. There is no question about it. They are more than aware of their shortcomings. There have been meetings. There has been yelling and screaming. There has been quiet. Coach Randy Carlyle said there was a "huge" list of possibilities of what was wrong. While he did not list each one, here are some of the obvious problems:
1. Stanley Cup Hangover - deny it, ignore it, call it whatever you want, but this hangover is lasting longer than expected. Any team that plays until June and is back on the ice for training camp two and half months later is going to be tired. You have to play hard in each round of the playoffs and it wears on the body. Guys who haven't played since April are less battered, less fatigued and hungry to play for what they missed out on last spring. The Ducks got a double whammy when they were sent eight time zones away to London, England, to open the NHL season at the end of September, compressing their training camp and pre-season. There is no formulation of Tylenol that will relieve this hangover. 2. Personnel changes - Scott Niedermayer, a future Hall of Famer defenseman, is pondering retirement. Mind you, he's been pondering this since June and still can't make up his mind. The captain was suspended for not showing up to camp and rumors continue daily about will he/won't he. His leadership is missing. His ability on the power play and the penalty kill are missing. His scoring is missing. His contract, which still has one more year on it, is taking up salary space, even though he isn't being paid while suspended. This has affected the Ducks ability to sign future restricted free agent Corey Perry due to the salary cap hit that is still in place. This needs to be resolved.
Mathieu Schneider - also signed as a free agent to replace the anticipated loss of Scott Niedermayer. Instead, Schneider suffered a broken ankle in his first pre-season game and finally made his debut at the beginning of November. He made an immediate impact in the line up, but has quieted down since then. 3. Injuries - the Ducks had plenty of injuries to start the season. Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Sami Pahlsson were recovering from sports hernia surgeries. Schneider and Bertuzzi have already been discussed. For a while it seemed as if all the Ducks players were never going to be healthy at the same time. Now the Ducks have all their personnel healthy and they are still having the same problems that plagued them at the beginning of the season. 4. Power Play - the Ducks are 29th in the NHL with a 12.8% success rate. That is nearly half the rate of Montreal, who has the best power play rate at 25.2%. The worst team is Edmonton, with 11.8%, although they improved that in the past two games against the Ducks with three power play goals in 13 opportunities. The Ducks just cannot seem to find the net with the extra man advantage. They can't even find the net with a two man advantage. 5. Penalty Kill - the Ducks are 26th in the NHL with a 79.0% success rate. Last year the Ducks were at the top of the league in penalty killing. Even though they took a lot of penalties, they were able to kill them off. This year is a different story. This is one area where they definitely miss Niedermayer and his ability to kill penalties. There was a certain respect for the player and a knowledge that you could get quickly burned if you challenged him. Now there is Kent Huskins or Shane Hnidy and the opposition is not afraid to challenge those players. The opposition is winning. Both the power play and the penalty kill have to improve if the Ducks want to have success. 6. Offense - last season the Ducks spread out the offense. This season three players have contributed the bulk of the goals. Perry has 13, Getzlaf has 11 and Kunitz has 9. No one else has more than 3 goals. That is not balanced scoring and if you shut down that line, where is the scoring going to come from? The Ducks have been shut out six times this season but have no shut outs against any opponents. They have scored only one goal in 5 games this season. Only 11 times have they scored more than 3 goals in a game but they have allowed opponents to score 3 or more goals in 16 games. Whoever says scoring is down in the NHL should look at any opponents of the Ducks. 7. Coaching - are the players starting to tune out the coach? Does Randy Carlyle know how to motivate his players to do their best? I think the answers are no and yes. The problem is in execution. Or simply doing too much and trying too hard. Making the extra play, taking the extra pass, choking the stick, panicking when things go wrong and trying to do something other than the game plan. Hard to stick to that game plan when you disrupt the flow of the game with penalty after penalty after penalty. Carlyle has taken the tough approach and the gentle approach, work hard, time off, lighten things up. He is pressing the buttons, and seemingly the right ones. The problem is the unresponsiveness of the players. 8. The players - they all know what to do. They have a system in place. They do the drills over and over and over again. The players are responsible to give 110% each game, come to the game rested and prepared to play. It's their job. But unless every single person is on the same page, the team is going to be disjointed and out of whack. Each player has been out of whack at one point or another. There is not one single player who has been consistently bad the whole season nor has there been one player consistently good. Therein lies the main problem. 9. Consistency - the Ducks have been unable to get on a roll. They have one winning streak of four games and that's it. They get one good game and follow it up with a stinker. They rebound from that and have another stinker. They cannot keep the good things going. Carlyle is always saying the team will be judged on how they respond to a bad game. They are going to be judged by how they play in every game at this point. So after losing three out of the past four games and being outscored 9-1 in the past two games, the Ducks had the day off on Monday. Carlyle was unsure what the players did on their day off. Coaches don't have that luxury. Carlyle said his day was spent "doing some deep thinking." It was time to analyze the past two games and "think of possible ways to approach the game." The results of those thoughts were evident in the Ducks Tuesday morning practice. Carlyle spent a lot of time on drills that addressed specific weaknesses. Carlyle felt that the Ducks had "lost a little bit of edge." As a result, he tried to "create battles, competitions, being in position to drive that middle lane." To that effect, he had several drills that focused on battling, especially deep in the corners. He told the players that they "can't accept giving up the puck in those areas!" With every drill the players responded, clearly desiring change as well. At the end of the hour plus practice, Carlyle gathered his players around him for the usual final words. In most circumstances they are brief or a few minutes at most. This morning he spent at least 10 to 15 minutes having a mini-meeting with his players. It began with the question, "what did you do over the summer?" This was his way of reminding the players what he feels they have forgotten. “We are not able to recall how difficult it is to have success. We forgot the amount of sacrifice, amount of work, good fortune it took to get us there.” Their memories have been jogged. Carlyle acknowledged that he was trying to stimulate more from them, emotionally, physically and conditioning. "The focus is getting ourselves 10% better in those areas." Even though the team is preparing to play the Buffalo Sabres Wednesday night, a team they have not played in two years, the focus is not so much on the next team as it is upon themselves. "We have to focus on what we can control. We haven't played as well as we need to or can. That has to change." Change starts with each of the players, who all know their responsibilities. Time to move forward. Today's practice was clearly the first step in that direction and there is plenty of room for improvement. With the most games played in the NHL and only 28 points to show for it, they are out of playoff contention. They are not going to be in playoff contention if each and every player does not dig deep and deeper still to be the very best that they can be. We will see if the Ducks bring their “A” game against the Sabres and apply some of what they learned today. Unless things change, they will continue to snowball in a downward direction and Ducks fans will be even more frustrated than they have been. The announced sell outs of 17,174 have not gone home happy and most have been going home prior to game's end. 15,000 season seat holders and other ticket buyers are helping to pay for the salaries of players who have not been doing their job. Will anyone be left to demand a refund by the time the season ends?
2008 Western Hockey Network |
ANAHEIM DUCKS
BACK TO DUCKS MAIN
Scott
Niedermayer to Rejoin Ducks
DEC
5, 2007 -- ANAHEIM -- GM Brian Burke announced prior to Wednesday night's game
against the Buffalo Sabres that defenseman Scott Niedermayer would be returning
to the team. Niedermayer, who had been skating with retired NHLers
at a rink in Westminster, California in recent weeks, had been given plenty of
time to make a decision regarding a return. Burke estimated that
Niedermayer would return in seven to ten days.
When asked about Niedermayer's
contract, which runs throught the 2008-09 season, the Ducks' GM noted that
Niedermayer wouldn't get a second chance at such a lengthy decision process, but
that the veteran defenseman had earned the right to make up his mind.
"Don't sign those retirement
papers," Burke said that he told Niedermayer early in the summer. Filing
of retirement papers would have meant that the only return due to a changed mind
on Niedermayer's part would have had to have been approved by all thirty NHL
clubs. Hence, Niedermayer earned, in Burke's view, the right to take his
time with his decision.
Burke noted that Niedermayer, while
34 years of age, is actually around 37 years old in terms of hockey-playing
years, due to the great number of playoff games in which he has appeared (183
career playoff games).
"It's like dog years," quipped
Burke. “I’m
excited to be rejoining my teammates and getting back on the ice,” said
Niedermayer in a statement released by the Ducks.
“I would like to
thank the Samuelis, Brian Burke and especially my teammates for their patience
while I wrestled with this very difficult decision.”
Niedermayer will
return to practice Thursday, December 6.
MORE DUCKS ARTICLES BY KAREN FRANCIS
Ducks Lack Consistency Ducks Thanksgiving Review/Preview (Nov 25, 2007)
Ducks at Quarter Pole (Nov 18, 2007) MORE DUCKS: Opportunity Knocks Again for Jason King by Josh Brewster
Cup Night Photos
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Teemu
Selanne -
the team's top scorer last year and another future Hall of Famer. His contract
was up July 1 and he remains an unrestricted free agent. So far he is golfing,
playing tennis, taking the kids to school and hockey practice, and waiting for
baby #4 to be born later this month. He is also pondering retirement, and is
retired by default until he states otherwise. Many have surmised that Teemu
could not return to the Ducks until Niedermayer's status had been resolved.
Besides the loss of offensive power, Andy McDonald has been most affected
negatively by Selanne's absence. McDonald has had a revolving door of linemates
that have included everyone except enforcer George Parros. 
Dustin
Penner -
went to the Edmonton Oilers after signing a ridiculously high offer sheet as a
restricted free agent. That left a hole on the Ryan Getzlaf/Corey Perry line
which has been primarily filled by Chris Kunitz. With Kunitz on the Getzlaf/Perry
line, Andy McDonald is without either linemate from the past two seasons. 
Todd
Bertuzzi -
was signed as a free agent to theoretically replace Selanne and his scoring.
The problem is that Bertuzzi and McDonald have two different styles of play.
Bertuzzi is a big body who would be a good fit with Getzlaf and Perry. However
the coach has insisted that Bertuzzi play with McDonald. The main problem is
that Bertuzzi has had injuries and missed a good portion of the season, the
longest being out five weeks with post concussion symptoms. He is just getting
comfortable in the line up and hasn't made his mark yet. 
