At Monday’s morning practice, Todd Marchant was wearing one of the short-lived “FOCUS” T-shirts that he put together prior to last year’s first-round playoff series against Dallas. He was unbothered by the superstitious reprecussion that, just maybe, wearing the shirt he rolled out before an early playoff exit last year might have the same effect this year.

Marchant was also unconcerned with coming up with a new T-shirt for this year, a task which has unofficially fallen upon his torso after what happened during the 2007 playoffs.

It was Marchant, you might recall, who thought up the “Destiny is Heart, Sacrifice and Passion” shirts worn by the Ducks during their run to the Stanley Cup; a new word was added for each playoff round. He rolled out the “FOCUS” shirts prior to the Ducks’ series with the Dallas Stars last year, only this time all the words were thrown out at once:

Faith
Opportunity
Courage
Unselfishness
Success

“The year that we did it, it kind of just happened,” Marchant said. “Last year we didn’t, maybe because we did it the year before.”

And this year?

“Maybe it won’t be something, maybe it’ll be a phrase that we say, or something that we do,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll evolve for us and we can carry it on.”