Notes on Brian Salcido’s debut.

Brian Salcido, a Hermosa Beach native became the 23rd California-born player to play in the NHL, and the 16th from Southern California, when he suited up for the Ducks’ game against the Detroit Red Wings.Prior to the trade that brought Wayne Gretzky to Southern California in the summer of 1988, only seven California-born players had ever played in the NHL.Since the trade and the inception of the Ducks in 1993, 15 California-born players have debuted in the NHL (Salcido will be the 16th).

Prior to 1988, only five Southern California-born players had appeared in the NHL. However, in just the last four seasons (since the start of the 2005-06 campaign), four players from Southern California have debuted in the league, with Salcido the fifth tonight.

Where have you gone, Bobby Ryan?

In 14 games in January, Bobby Ryan notched a point in all but two. It was quite a streak, one that earned him NHL Rookie of the Month honors, and brought him on the doorstep of the rookie scoring lead.

Ryan has since cooled off in February. Before his goal and assist in Sunday’s loss to Atlanta, he had just a goal to show in the first five games of the month.

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Carlyle: Pahlsson to miss first part of trip.

Randy Carlyle said today that center Samuel Pahlsson, who is battling a viral infection, will not join the Ducks at the outset of their six-game road trip beginning Friday in Detroit.

“The preliminary talks are, he’ll be another couple days” before Pahlsson can begin practicing with the team, Carlyle said. “He might quite possibly join us on the trip.”

Pahlsson has missed six straight games, during which Todd Marchant has taken his place on the team’s checking line.

Ducks-Kings: This time it counts.

It’s tempting to assign that slogan, or some variation on it, to tomorrow’s installment of the “Freeway Face-off” at Honda Center.

After three straight years in which a win for the Ducks was just another win, and a loss for the Kings was just another loss, the two teams find themselves separated by just four points in the standings. That adds more significance to the game than any marketing-department hatched slogan could.

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More Carlyle.

Here were Randy Carlyle’s postgame comments:

“Those are ones that you bang your head against the wall and you try to figure out how we could perform to the level we performed.We didn’t have anything going in a lot of areas. We tried, just got frustrated. Pucks got away from us in every situation where we could get any momentum going, and then it was just, you know, got frustrated, tried to do too much as individuals and it just fed their attack.”

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