Hiller on back-to-back starts.
It's not a question of who is the Ducks' number one goaltender in the mind of Randy Carlyle. It's "1-A and 1-B," an answer repeated so often that the question of who the Ducks' number one is at the moment wasn't even asked last night.
Really, there was no question of who 1-A is. Jonas Hiller has so greatly assumed that mantle over Jean-Sebastien Giguere, he ended up starting on back-to-back nights against the San Jose Sharks on Saturday and Sunday.
"I am just happy for every game I can play," Hiller said after Sunday's 5-2 loss. "Sure I'm proud that at the end of the year, in important games, I still get a chance to play, but I also know it goes fast and one bad game could be my last this year."
That one bad game hasn't happened yet. Hiller stopped 23 of 26 against the Sharks last night, and none of the three that got through -- like the two goals he allowed the night before -- could just as easily have been attributed to the Ducks' defense in front of him.
Jeremy Roenick was wide-open for the Sharks' first goal, after a turnover in the corner by Brendan Mikkelson caught his teammates off-guard in the defensive zone. Joe Pavelski's power-play goal late in the second period was simply a result of good execution and finding the open man down low against the Ducks' penalty-kill coverage. Jonathan Cheechoo scored on a textbook tip-in, redirecting a puck down low that Christian Ehrhoff shot from the point.
So does Hiller get another start?
"I don't know," he said. "I'm just happy to have a day off tomorrow."
About J.P.
J.P. Hoornstra has been covering the Anaheim Ducks since 2007. Eight months after the University of Wisconsin won its third NCAA hockey championship, he was born in a frigid Madison winter. He betrayed his blue-blooded beginnings by graduating from UCLA in 2003, and welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
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