Sporting an opinion

So, which Bobby had the better day Tuesday?

Was it Bobby on "A shot at Love with Tila Tequila?"

Or was it Ducks rookie winger Bobby Ryan?

That's purely a judgment call. Maybe if Tila Tequila is your "friend" on myspace, you're dying of jealousy that she picked Bobby tonight. If you're more of a Ducks fan, you had to love Bobby Ryan's goal as he was tripped to give the Ducks a 2-0 lead on the Sharks. It was the last goal of the game and Ryan's second in as many games since he was called up from Portland over the weekend.

Notably, Ryan's goal came on the power play. No team's power play can ever be good enough, but at the beginning of this season the Ducks had only one line capable of scoring consistently on the man advantage. Things are looking up.

Especially if your name is Bobby.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

30 seconds left in the game, Scott Niedermayer and Sammy Pahlsson in a 2-on-1, Niedermayer to Pahlsson, back to Niedermayer, the shot!! ...

...Hits the post!

OK, so he missed the game-winning goal by mere inches, but Scott Niedermayer was still the man (albeit in lower-case) on Sunday for...

• getting the loudest ovation BY FAR during the pregame roll call,
• getting applauded the first two times he touched the puck,
• spending 23:52 on the ice, more than all but three of his teammates, despite having not played an actual NHL game in six months ... and despite losing his Samsonian playoff beard.

Significantly, he didn't sound bothered about having "caused trouble," i.e., the Andy McDonald trade, like which is exactly how he phrased it Saturday.

His postgame words:
"There’s no secrets when you’ve played a while. It was exactly what I expected. It would have been great to win the game. We could have done that, but it was a hard-fought game, an intense game, two pretty good teams playing hard and we didn’t have an opportunity in two games to get two points.

"I felt better. That was alright, getting the first one under your belt is always a big step for sure. The next two games back to back will be a big test. I've just got to be smart.

"Tonight was a game where we worked pretty hard. We did a lot of good things, made a few mistakes, had a few lulls in our intensity and you can’t have that. We just got to keep working, trying to build, eliminate those few things.

"We were right there. We had some opportunities to win that game. It’s a fine line when you’re playing a team like that. We understand that. A couple different things we could have done.

"I didn’t really have time to think about (that shot going in). Thought there was a chance it might go.

"Everybody likes to hear something like that (crowd response). I’ve enjoyed playing here. The fans have been great. Everyone’s been great. It’s very nice that they let you know you’re out there working hard, trying to help the team.

"It’s a tough game, but it’s a fun game, a big challenge to play a game like that. That’s why we do it.

"I guess we’ve talked about it as long as I’ve been here and this year as well – taking too many penalties. That obviously doesn’t help you."

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In case you missed it, Andy McDonald was shipped out to St. Louis today for Doug Weight.

It's a swap of struggling players and, depending on your point of view, was either a very shrewd means to the goal of dumping salary or a needless jettisoning of a popular player.
Mac had marginal bragging rights on Jean-Sebastien Giguere as the Ducks' longest-tenured player. He had just become a dad. He was a quiet guy who never wore a "C" or even an "A" on his jersey, but was clearly pretty popular. You got the feeling nobody wanted to see him traded. Asked if the trade brought any resolution, Todd Marchant said "not really." Read between the lines: "I'm glad it wasn't me, but – not Andy!"
On the other hand, most prognosticators had the Ducks ditching Mathieu Schneider, Francois Beauchemin, Sean O'Donnell, even Marchant in a salary dump for draft picks. Getting the tagging room plus an actual player – a veteran player with a damn good resume, if not fresh legs – has to be a better scenario for the team.
I'm not sure what to expect from Weight at this point in his career; I only remember him as a damn good player in Edmonton a decade ago. Marchant, his Oilers teammate for eight years, called him "a tremendous player ... and certainly a great teammate."
Brad May called him "a superstar."
We'll see.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Ducks were told, to their faces prior to Wednesday's game, that at least one of them would be traded to make room for Scott Niedermayer on the roster. It got them motivated against the Sabres, and it got me motivated to ask ... who will it be?

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brian Burke made it official half an hour ago: Scott Niedermayer is ready to return to the Ducks. He will skate at Anaheim Ice tomorrow, will skate with his teammates when they get back from the upcoming road trip in a week, and could be ready to play against the Canucks on Dec. 12. At least one roster move will have to be made, but even Burke wasn't sure how much money he needs to clear up. So that will wait. In the meantime, be happy for Scotty and pray for Teemu Selanne – he and his wife just had a baby girl.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 7:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unconfirmed reports are swirling that he's coming back, not retiring. This is great news for the Ducks if it's true – check the next update following the 6:30 press conference.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Ducks have planned an announcement for 6:30 p.m., a half-hour before the puck drops on their game with the Sabres, that will herald either the end of Scott Niedermayer's career or his return to the team. Mum's the word until then ... so stay tuned.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I wrote in Monday's San Bernardino Sun that the Ducks players and coaches were "going bald scratching their heads" trying to figure out what's wrong with the team. I might have been jumping the gun a bit with my hyperbole. Turns out I actually knew what I was writing.

On Monday, a day off for the players (Drew Miller had dinner with his brother, Buffalo goalie Ryan), Randy Carlyle reviewed the Edmonton game and did some "deep thinking." It resulted in an interesting practice. The team did a drill I hadn't seen before, sprinting full-on, two at a time, from one blue line to the top of the opposite faceoff circles. Over and over. No puck anywhere, just a stick in the hand, sprinting.

The coach's philosophy: "We just have to try to stimulate more – from an emotional, physical and conditioning aspect – is what we‘re going to try and focus on to get ourselves 10 percent better. We‘re displaying some things that are causing us to think we‘ve lost a little bit of an edge."

He talked to the players a lot during this practice, more than I've ever seen him just stand next to a whiteboard and talk. It's interesting to note, and probably just a coincidence, that the Kings had a 2-hour off-ice meeting in lieu of a practice over the weekend before playing Edmonton on Sunday night.

So aside from benching Todd Marchant and Shane Hnidy and maybe switching the lines up – check out tomorrow's notebook – this is how the Ducks are "shaking things up." For now.

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Randy Carlyle didn't want to give the perception of hopelessness.

That was his explanation for not pulling Jean-Sebastien Giguere during Sunday's 4-0 loss to Edmonton:

"In my mind, when you do that in that situation, I thought it wasn’t the right thing to do. When you make that move in a 4-0 hockey game, it leads people to believe that you made a change because the outcome is hopeless. In that specific situation, that’s the way I read it. I didn’t feel that was appropriate at that time. That’s the way I read it."

That was probably a wise strategy. The Ducks looked flat out of gas on Sunday, and they were committing their same old mistakes by taking penalties in the offensive zone. It was a downright ugly game. But at least they kept their goalie in, so it couldn't have been that bad, right?

Some more postgame quotes ...

From Giguere:
"It still is a very simple game. It’s entirely up to the players right now to see what we’re going to do. The system works, because we’ve done it last year. It’s the same system. We haven’t changed anything. It’s a proven system. It’s a system that’s won a championship. We know it works. We just have to believe in it, and go ahead and do it."

From Rob Niedermayer:
"In the last five, six games, we’ve been taking way too many penalties and we’re just not doing a good job penalty killing. It takes a lot of flow out of the game for the guys who aren’t killing penalties. It disrupts our rhythm. That’s sort of our strength, is our four lines as a team. Take that away, that’s a big thing. It’s just, um, guys in here who sometimes are – you try a little too hard and are pressing."

From Dustin "we-hardly-knew-ye" Penner:
"We knew they'd [play aggressively] after our last game in Edmonton when we won 5-1. We knew we'd have to withstand their pressure for the first 10 minutes. You can beat that mentality of game plan by just skating hard and making smart passes."

And from the "don't-care-if-Scotty-and-Teemu-come-back" department ...

Giguere: "It’s up to us (to play within the system). It’s the 22 guys that’s with the team right now that’s going to do it. Nobody else."

Niedermayer: "We’re the only guys in this room that are going to turn this around."

Posted by J.P. Hoornstra at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)