Ducks at the World Championships, Day 2.

Only one current Ducks player took the ice Saturday in Slovakia: Cam Fowler played 14:38 and collected an assist in the United States’ 5-1 win over Austria. It was the first game of the tournament for the Americans.

Swiss defenseman Luca Sbisa, the other Anaheim participant, was held scoreless Friday night in his team’s 1-0 win over France.

Fowler and Sbisa are the only Ducks players taking part in the tournament. Typically the IIHF World Championships are a bigger deal in Europe than North America, where those whole Stanley Cup playoffs are going on. Check out the list of players who suited up for the U.S. and you’ll see why the NHL playoffs are a more compelling draw.

Slovakia native Lubomir Visnovsky said he would like to take part in the tournament on his home soil, but only if his balky shoulder joints allow it. He didn’t dress in the Slovaks’ 3-1 win over Slovenia Friday night.

Former Ducks taking part in the tournament include Ryan Shannon and Mike Brown (U.S.), Evgeny Artyukhin (Russia), and Petteri Nokelainen (Finland).

Ducks recall Oystrick.

Defenseman Nathan Oystrick has been recalled from the American Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves. The 27-year-old has appeared in 53 career NHL games but none for the Ducks since he was acquired from the Atlanta Thrashers for Evgeny Artyukhin on March 1.
 
The 6-foot, 205-pound defenseman has seven goals and 23 points with a plus-5 rating and 96 penalty minutes in 43 games for the Wolves this year.

A native of Regina, Saskatchewan, Oystrick has appeared in four AHL seasons with Chicago, collecting 37 goals, 114 points, a plus-30 rating and 317 PIM in 205 career games. He has also added three goals and 17 points in 39 AHL playoff games, helping lead the Wolves to the 2008 Calder Cup.

Bodie, Arty leave their marks.

Troy Bodie and Evgeny Artyukhin are a couple of 6-foot-4 heavyweights, standing on the far opposite end of the hockey spectrum of the slick-skating Finns Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu.

But with Selanne and Koivu injured, Artyukhin and Bodie filled the void in the Ducks’ lineup on Sunday, scoring goals 32 seconds apart in the second period against the Calgary Flames.
Continue reading “Bodie, Arty leave their marks.” »

Ducks 5, Calgary 4.

Undeterred by injuries and a 4-0 loss in their last outing, the Ducks treated 16,153 at Honda Center to two fights and three goals — and that was just in the first period.

After letting the Calgary Flames re-take the lead with three unanswered goals, Anaheim got the game-tying and game-winning goals from Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan, respectively, in the third period.

Dan Sexton, Evgeny Artyukhin and Troy Bodie also scored, and Jonas Hiller recovered from a tough start in a 33-save effort.

Bodie’s goal was the first of his NHL career, and Hiller also recorded the second assist of his NHL career on the goal by Artyukhin.

The Ducks are 6-1-0 in their past seven games and 8-3-1 in their past 12. Their seven-game home ice winning streak is the longest active home streak in the league, and three shy of the franchise record set in 2008.

Chicago 5, Ducks 2.

The Ducks had to do all the little things — and all the big things — to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks, owners of the Western Conference’s best record, on the road Sunday.


After hanging on for 26 scoreless minutes, both areas of the game caught up with the Ducks.

“We had a couple opportunities on the power play,” head coach Randy Carlyle said. “In games like this, that can make a world of difference. We had our fair share of chances. We had lots of 2-on-1s, we got scoring opportunities, but we hit posts or their goaltender made some big stops.”

“We didn’t do enough to force ’em. A couple 2-on-1s, we just skated right in. We didn’t change the angle of the puck.”

Petteri Nokelainen scored twice in less than two minutes of the third period to salvage a more respectable final score. But Blackhawks goalie Antti Niemi was otherwise invincible against the Ducks, stopping 22 of 24.

Blackhawks forwards Kris Versteeg and Troy Brouwer scored on Jean-Sebastien Giguere (23 saves) to put Chicago up 2-0 going into the final period. Then Marian Hossa did the biggest damage early in the third, scoring at even strength at 1:14, and again on a power play at 3:41, to effectively put the game away.

“I thought we did come out and play sort of the type of game we have to play in here … we were skating, we were making simple plays,” Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer said. “We had a couple chances; if those go in it’s a different game. They capitalized on theirs and it started to pile on at the end. It’s gone this way for us a fair number of times before this year.”

Sheldon Brookbank and Evgeny Artyukhin collected the assists on both goals for the Ducks (16-19-7), who will try to shake a three-game losing streak against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday in Anaheim.

Nashville 3, Ducks 1.

Two Predators goals in the final 10 minutes doomed the Ducks, who played without Ryan Getzlaf for the third straight game, and lost their second in a row.


Mike Brown scored the lone goal for the Ducks at 7:45 of the first period, and Jonas Hiller stopped 33 of 35. But he was left to dry on the Preds’ second goal, when Jason Arnott was given plenty of space to complete an odd-man rush at 10:11 of the third period, snapping a shot into the top of the net to make it 2-1.

The Ducks(16-18-7) also failed to gain ground on another Western Conference opponent, while falling further back of the final playoff spot. Thanks to a Kings win over the Washington Capitals earlier Saturday, the Ducks sit 12 points out of eighth place. They’ll get another chance to make up ground Sunday, when they face the Central-leading Blackhawks in Chicago.

A scratch for most of December, Evgeny Artyukhin played his second consecutive game and picked up an assist. So did Petteri Nokelainen, as Anaheim’s fourth line combined for its only goal.

Geztlaf is accompanying the Ducks on their current three-game road trip but hasn’t played as he recovers from a lacerated leg.

Minutes from Tuesday’s meeting.

On a night when Ryan Getzlaf missed his first game of the season — along with injured forwards Teemu Selanne and Joffrey Lupul — Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle had his work cut out for him Tuesday against the Minnesota Wild. Divvying up the time on ice was a challenge, but the end result was a 4-2 victory.

Continue reading “Minutes from Tuesday’s meeting.” »

Russian Olympic roster announced; no Artyukhin.

Ducks forward Evgeny Artyukhin was not among the 14 Russian players in the NHL chosen for the country’s Olympic roster, announced Friday.


The NHL forwards chosen ahead of Artyukhin include Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk, Pavel Datsyuk, Alexander Semin and Maxim Afinogenov.Nine players from the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League also filled out the roster, including former Duck Sergei Fedorov.

Former Ducks goalie Ilya Bryzgalov did make the final roster, along with Evgeni Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks and Semyon Varlamov.

The full roster, according to the Calgary Herald Web site:

Goalies

Ilya Bryzgalov (Phoenix Coyotes), Evgeni Nabokov (San Jose Sharks), Semyon Varlamov (Washington Capitals).

Defense

Sergei Gonchar (Pittsburgh Penguins), Denis Grebeshkov (Edmonton Oilers), Dmitri Kalinin (Salavat Ufa), Konstantin Korneyev (CSKA Moscow), Andrei Markov (Montreal Canadiens), Ilya Nikulin (Ak Bars Kazan), Fedor Tyutin (Columbus Blue Jackets), Anton Volchenkov (Ottawa Senators).

Forwards

Maxim Afinogenov (Atlanta Thrashers), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit Red Wings), Sergei Fedorov (Metallurg Magnitogorsk), Ilya Kovalchuk (Atlanta Thrashers), Viktor Kozlov (Salavat Ufa), Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins), Alexei Morozov (Ak Bars Kazan), Alexander Ovechkin (Washington Capitals), Alexander Radulov (Salavat Ufa), Alexander Semin (Washington Capitals), Danis Zaripov (Ak Bars Kazan), Sergei Zinoviev (Salavat Ufa).