Monthly Archives: April 2011

Ducks 6, San Jose 2.

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The only thing clinched at Honda Center on Wednesday was Corey Perry’s Hart Trophy bid. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

The Ducks’ surprisingly lopsided win over the Sharks did not ensure a playoff berth but was still badly needed. The Chicago Blackhawks temporarily moved into seventh place in the Western Conference standings with an overtime win against St. Louis. Calgary briefly matched the Ducks at 93 points in the standings with its win over Edmonton, putting further pressure on Anaheim to win its game in hand on the Flames.

The Sharks had been steamrolling everyone, but gently applied the brakes Wednesday after locking up the Pacific Division title two days earlier.

Gritty forward Ryane Clowe took the night off. Top players like Patrick Marleau (15:50), Dany Heatley (14:39), Joe Thornton (11:12) and Logan Couture (14:15) didn’t get top-player minutes. Backup goalie Antero Niittymaki got his first start in nearly three months — Jan. 13 was his last — and the Ducks took full advantage.

Perry completed his third hat trick this season (also the third of his career) in the game’s first 31 minutes, causing a mass litter of headgear on the Honda Center ice and pausing the Ducks’ onslaught at 4-1. The last of the three goals, a Perry-patented, long-armed flick of the wrist through traffic, made him the league’s first 50-goal scorer.

Teemu Selanne and Jason Blake added goals later in the period, and rookie defenseman Cam Fowler got his 10th of the season in the first stanza.

But tonight figures to go down as the night that M-V-P became more than just a loud exercise in wishful thinking.
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Selanne awarded medal of recognition.

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From the Ducks’ PR staff:

On Sunday, Finnish Ambassador to the United States, Mr. Pekka Lintu, along with wife, Mrs. Laurel Colless made an official trip to Honda Center to watch Teemu Selanne and the Anaheim Ducks take on the Dallas Stars. Following the game in a private ceremony, the Ambassador presented Selanne with “The Cross of Merit of the Order of the Lion of Finland.” The medal was awarded for Selanne’s outstanding role in promoting Finnish sportsmanship and values in the NHL.

The medal was granted to Selanne on Finnish Independence Day (Dec. 6, 2010) by Mrs. Tarja Halonen, President of Finland. Ambassador Lintu and Mrs. Colless traveled to Anaheim to present the medal to Selanne on the President’s behalf. It marks the first time a Finnish ice hockey player has received the Cross of Merit honor.

On Independence Day, the Finnish President acknowledges the work and achievements of individual citizens by granting medals and orders of different levels.

Sounds like a rare accomplishment, one that may supercede any awards Selanne earns for playing hockey this season.

Perry named ‘First star of the Week’; does he have a Hart?

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Alright, give the man some big awards already …

Three days after being named the NHL’s player of the month for March, Ducks forward Corey Perry was named “First star of the week” for the week ending Sunday. Perry had a league-best eight points (three goals, five assists) in four games. He’s been one of the league-appointed three stars of the week in each of the past four weeks, which almost never happens.

Perry leads the NHL in goals (47), is
tied for second place in game-winning goals (10) and ranks third
in points (47-46–93). He has an active nine-game scoring streak,
during which he has tallied 18 points (11 goals, seven assists) and a plus-9
rating.

It’s reasonable to expect that some major individual awards will follow. The only player with a realistic chance of catching Perry for the Rocket Richard Trophy, Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos, has 44 goals with three games left on the schedule for both the Lightning and Ducks.

As for the Hart Trophy, given to the league’s MVP, the list of candidates more worthy than Perry is getting shorter.
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Stars 4, Ducks 3.

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It’s never a good day when a coach is asked to recall an overturned goal that went against his team, and has to specify which one.

It hasn’t been a good weekend for Randy Carlyle and the Ducks.

Back-to-back losses to the Sharks and Stars have put their playoff plans on hold, and this one was frustrating on a couple counts. Namely, Teemu Selanne’s goal at 17:56 of the third period and Bobby Ryan’s goal at 19:11, neither of which counted in the eyes of referee Brad Meier.

Those tended to overshadow the goals that counted — by Lubomir Visnovsky, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry — and the fact the Ducks played like a group worn down by Saturday night’s loss in San Jose. The low point was probably a 5-on-3 shift spanning 80 seconds of the middle period during which the Ducks couldn’t get off a shot from within 20 feet of Kari Lehtonen.

Ray Emery (27 saves) lost his second game as a Duck, second game of the season, and second in as many days.

Tomorrow’s game story focuses on the reaction in the Ducks’ room to the calls by Meier, whose crew also missed a too many men on the ice call against Dallas in the second period. There was plenty of steam to be blown off, and Carlyle instructed his players to “do nothing” tomorrow — no practice, no golf — just recharge the batteries for another game against the Sharks on Wednesday, with a playoff berth at stake again.

A few more notes:
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Perry named NHL’s player of the month.

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The latest accolade for Corey Perry might not be the last.

The Ducks’ right wing was named the NHL’s Player of the Month on Friday. He finished March with a league-leading 15 goals, bringing his league-leading season total to 46 and becoming just the
fifth NHL player since Jan. 1997 to score 15 goals in a single
month.

The first question he took on a national conference call was about what might be next: The Rocket Richard Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL’s leading goal-scorer.

“I don’t know if you can ever say that you’re going to win
it,” Perry said. “I mean, you have to have a lot of great bounces and teammates to
play with. I have to give a lot of credit to them. Recently it’s been
going well, and you know, I’m just trying to help the team win. That’s
all I’m worried about.“

Perry’s 15 goals were the most in a single month in franchise history. Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne previously shared
the record (Kariya had 13 in January, 2000 and Selanne recorded 13 in
November, 1997).

For the season, Perry is also tied for
first in the league game-winning goals (10, also Daniel Sedin and Alex Ovechkin).
He’s tied for fourth in points (89) and power-play goals (12), and tied for
eighth in short-handed goals (3). He also ranks second among all NHL
forwards in ice time (22:07), which is also first among all right
wingers.

“You
just go into every game expecting to play well,” Perry said. “Things happened in
March that doesn’t happen very often. It’s one of those things where you
go out, you play your game, and you see what happens. But you know, March was a good month, and hopefully there’s more to come.”

March was a good month for a few Ducks.
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