Road trip productive, but Ducks have a ways to go.
The Ducks' recently concluded four-game road swing was neither a panacea, nor was it the road trip from h-e-double hockey stick. It was something in the middle, just as its 2-1-1 record suggests.
But, as Ryan Whitney said, "it should have been a 3-1 trip." When the 82-game regular season is over, the Ducks might look back at last Thursday's 4-3 loss in Minnesota -- after having led the game 3-0 -- as a critical lost point.
What's more, Randy Carlyle said the team is still searching for its identity, having found it only in fits and spurts.
"I think we did some things in stretches in some games, and there's proof in that to us as a coaching staff -- and there's proof to (the players) -- that we're capable of doing some of the things we need to do," he said, "but we need to do them consistently to be a good hockey club."
Still, the Ducks return home a more cohesive group, even if it didn't always show on the ice.
"If nothing else, you learn a lot about your teammates," forward Todd Marchant said. "People don't realize when you're on the road, you wake up in the morning and you go to breakfast. There's guys having breakfast; maybe you go to breakfast with a guy you maybe have never had breakfast with, or a bite to eat with, and you learn something about that guy.
"Then you get on the bus, go to the rink, then you practice, go home, have lunch, then you go for dinner. You're spending pretty much 24 hours a day with your teammates. That makes a huge difference, to get to know your teammates off the ice. When you know your teammates off the ice, it translates into knowing teammates on the ice."
The Ducks' active roster features seven players (out of 23) who didn't finish last season in Anaheim.
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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