Quacked

(PHOTO: Martti Kainulainen/AFP/Getty Images)

Let’s cut right to the chase: a price will have to be paid if the Anaheim Ducks want to right their ship. The discussion no longer revolves around a speculative “if”, but an inevitable “when” and “for whom” the bell will toll.

The candidates gallery has a plethora of worthy scapegoats. Randy Carlyle, whose message his players are apparently tuning out, should be at the top of the heap.

(PHOTO: Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

Day after day, night after night, a creature is stirring, with infinite might

He’ll run the goalie, or lose his jersey over his head, but he’ll keep on battling, even when his legs feel like lead

The garden gnome jokes, the things that are said, he won’t bother listening, but will let the blood shed

He doesn’t complain, with Selanne and Koivu he churns, but now that he’s hurt, it’s time for people to learn

January 31, 2010. News breaks that the Anaheim Ducks have traded Jean-Sebastien Giguere to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Collectively, Ducks fans sigh. The logistics of trading Giguere to clear cap space are obvious — most likely, there’s nothing to be gained. Nevertheless, cue the hopeful speculation of Ducks fans — despite the likelihood that it is a zero sum transaction. Some mention a possible return of Francois Beauchemin. Details start to clear up, and Jeff Finger’s name floats around cyberspace. Certainly no Beauch, but one can at least stomach the thought. Aside from the atrocious contract, Finger doesn’t suck. Certainly something the Ducks could use: a defenseman who does not suck. But then the real deal breaks and everything becomes official.

Giguere, the guy who put the Mighty Ducks on his back for a legendary run in 2003, whose stardom was born in Anaheim, whose number may one day be raised to the rafters of The Pond, whose name was immortalized as a verb by generational talent Will Smith — THAT GUY — is gone. And the slimmest of the aforementioned hopes are shattered as Anaheim announces the acquisition of Vesa Toskala and Jason Blake.

(PHOTO: Elsa/Getty Images/NHLI)

Another day, another statsbomb — or as it’s known more colloquially, infographic. The focus this time is on Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s efforts in backstopping the 2003 Mighty Ducks to an improbable Stanley Cup run that came up a game short.

Was it a case of common heroism that occurs every playoff season when one player rises from obscurity to take the hockey world by storm? Or was it truly a performance for the ages? Click below and decide for yourself:

Click to enlarge.

(PHOTO: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)

With news coming out today that the plane crash that claimed the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team was a result of pilot error, it seems like a sad denouement to an already tragic event.

Each of the lives lost in the crash meant something to somebody — to Ducks fans, the loss of Ruslan Salei hit home particularly hard.

At this point, there is little to say that hasn’t already been said. Eulogizing Salei is a task better left to those who knew him personally. (Additionally, the Ducks franchise already provided a forum for his ex-teammates to do just that.)

How then does a humble blogger properly pay his respects to a player like Ruslan Salei?

(PHOTO: Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)

Two days ago, a fantastical-if-obvious thought took my brain by storm: I would prove that Teemu Selanne is a really good player. The best Ducks player ever, at that.

Paul Kariya, please hold your objections.

But I soon realized a patent analysis like that might be better completed after Selanne retires for real, whenever that happens. Besides, Adam Brady already did a decent job of covering the issue in broad strokes.

What I’m bringing you instead is a splendiferous Teemu Selanne infographic:

Click to enlarge.

(PHOTO: Jonathan Nackstrand/Getty Images)

Update: Hiller’s Movember mask revealed, and it’s a beauty.

We’re not the only ones back in black this month.

After a summer of uncertainty following the onset of vertigo symptoms late last season, Jonas Hiller has made a return to the Ducks net. And judging by Anaheim’s hasty exit from the playoffs, none too soon, either.

Can Hiller’s presence in the crease and his value to the Ducks be overstated? It’s doubtful.

What happens to blogs when they are left alone for considerable periods of time? For many, it is tantamount to a death sentence — they are released into the ether of cyberspace, surviving only as temporal reminders of the web as it once was.

I am happy to report that will NOT be the case with this blog. Though the story of the past few months has been one of more waning than waxing, now that the National Hockey League has kicked off its 2011-12 regular season it’s time to get back to business.

To celebrate this renewed commitment to regular (ish) updates, we have been undergoing some user interface enhancements (a much more congenial euphemism for the ugly truth of transitional reconstruction). Gone is the garish orange of old and back is black. Although the majority of the changeover has been completed, be on the lookout for additional nips and tucks as we try to perfect the experience.

The Ducks are off to a good start this season, and on that note, we also hope to put our best foot forward from here on out.

(PHOTO: Frederick Breedon/Getty Images)

It’s all over. Does it sting any less than 2008′s hasty exit did? In some ways, yes. On other levels, there is much to take from the past season, regardless of its ultimate result. The Anaheim Ducks overachieved, or underachieved, depending on when you tuned in (in fact, fans seem split on how to decipher the first round loss). No matter how the end result is measured, there is little doubt that the emotional welt left by the loss has as much to do with how suddenly it happened as it does with the mere fact that it did happen.

A full-season recap is beyond the scope of this post, and is perhaps better written after the official conclusion of the season (i.e. for all teams). With necessary critical distance, it might be slightly less painful to evaluate Anaheim’s performance and look ahead to training camp in September. Until then, it is probably safe to say that the abrupt end to this season will leave many Ducks fans asking, “What if?” Disappointment, as it were, is fully justified.

The momentum the Ducks carried into the playoffs had hopes high, but if there was one team with the defensive ability to shut down an attack that included Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Bobby Ryan and a resurgent Teemu Selanne, it was Nashville, with studs Shea Weber and Ryan Suter on defense, and Vezina nominee Pekka Rinne in goal (who was, ironically, a non-factor). Granted, expectations were somewhat tempered, at least by those positing predictions, because Jonas Hiller was sidelined. In the end though, it was not the goaltending that brought down the ship – what’s the old saying about winning together and losing together? – but instead a pattern of mistakes that the Predators successfully exploited.

Questions abound for the Ducks and general manager Bob Murray as the off-season looms in Anaheim almost two months sooner than the team had hoped. For the time being, however, the organization can put those questions aside as its players and off-ice personnel are left to sit and ponder the playoff run that never was.

In the words of the immortal T.S. Eliot, “This is the way [it] ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.”

Simple thus, the top priority for the Ducks heading into 2011-12 is clear: more bang, less whimper.

Over and out.

(PHOTO: Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

This editorial has been sitting in my queue ever since Colin Campbell handed down his verdict of suspension to Bobby Ryan for the latter’s indiscriminate use of his skate blade last Friday night. The truth is, I decided to wait to see how the two games in Nashville would play out, if only to stoke the fire of my anger in the event of two Ducks losses. Little could I have known – although in retrospect it seems an obvious expectation – that when it came time to hammer this piece out another Ducks player would be facing Campbell’s infamous “wheel of discipline”.

At the time of this writing, Jarkko Ruutu has just been handed a one-game suspension for a late hit on Predators forward Martin Erat, who consequently will not participate in game five tomorrow night as a result. At first blush, the situation reeks of partial politics on the part of the league, but is more distressingly symptomatic of a systemic, underlying problem in the way the league executes its judiciary office.

(PHOTO: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

Somebody should have warned Jonas Hiller that carousels and vertigo don’t mix.  Ever since the Ducks’ starting goaltender went down after the all-star game, Anaheim’s crease has once again become home to a triumvirate of netminders.

It’s a situation that’s not entirely unfamiliar to the Ducks, but in 2007 the issue at hand was a little different.  Incumbent Jean-Sebastien Giguere was the undisputed starter, having just signed a $24-million deal after Anaheim’s Stanley Cup triumph.  Ilya Bryzgalov was on the market because Brian Burke had promised him a new home where he could audition for a full-time role, and with newcomer Hiller having selected Anaheim as his immigration destination, the Ducks had three goaltenders who were willing and able to start for them.

Flash forward to this year, and the quandary facing the Ducks is entirely different: Giguere is long gone, Bryzgalov is leading the charge for the playoff-bound Coyotes, and Hiller – well, he’s here, but not all there. Having long since established himself as a premier NHL starter, Hiller gives the Ducks license to be less than perfect. If there was one area in which the Ducks were sure to not have concerns heading forward – prior to the all-star break – it was in net.