In September, on the cusp of a season in which the Anaheim Ducks were projected as strong Stanley Cup contenders again, coach Bruce Boudreau tried to tamp down the hype.
“We’ve gotten a lot of accolades for doing nothing right now,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
Three weeks into the season, he is still right. The Ducks have done nothing, sinking to the bottom of the Western Conference standings because of an astonishing inability to put the puck in the net.
The 1-5-2 Ducks have scored six goals in eight games and been shut out five times.
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So who kidnapped Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Andrew Cogliano and Jakob Silfverberg and replaced them with five guys from a midnight recreational league?
That quintet scored 106 goals last season. They have combined for zero so far.
Top acquisition Carl Hagelin, the former New York Rangers left wing, added in an attempt to upgrade team speed, has one lonely assist.
The Ducks earned a paltry one point in their first four games, while failing to score in three of them. They seemingly righted themselves with a 4-1 thumping of the Minnesota Wild, but followed that up with road losses to Nashville, Minnesota and Chicago.
Hard to believe it is the same team that last season led the conference in points, went to the Western finals, and took a 3-2 lead in games over the eventual champions Chicago Blackhawks before falling hard.
In the off-season, the Ducks lost 22-goal scorer Matt Beleskey through free agency, as well as veteran blue-liner Francois Beauchemin, but remained mostly intact. Hagelin and new defenceman Kevin Bieksa, a respected veteran from the Vancouver Canucks, supposedly filled the holes.
The Ducks also returned starting goalie Frederik Andersen, and still have top prospect John Gibson, 22, ready to take over in a flash.
Right now, it is not a goalie issue. Andersen is saving 94 per cent of shots on goal and boasts a 1.71 goals against average.
It is those goal non-scorers.
“We’re trying to say all the right things, trying to encourage each other,” defenceman Cam Fowler said after the fourth shutout. “I’d be lying if I said it was easy to stay positive right now.”
Boudreau has tinkered with his lines, trying to find a spark. Most notoriously, he has separated Getzlaf and Perry, put them back together and separated them again. But that is not unusual. Boudreau is notorious for trying different combinations, during games at times, to make things work.
So far, nothing, and the pressure on the team has been building.
“When you have chances and don’t score, it’s magnified even more,” Boudreau said. “You’re holding the stick so tight, you can’t even make plays.”
Even though Boudreau led the Ducks to 54 wins two years ago and 51 wins last season, the rumour mill has him on the hot seat, thanks to the team’s ice-cold start.
Bob Murray, the general manager, reassigned some of Boudreau’s hand-picked assistants after the team’s agonising elimination last spring. If media speculation is true, the coach will not have much longer to turn the season around.
Before the Ducks played Chicago on Monday, Kesler told the team’s website, “We turn the page today. Our goal is to win and score a lot of goals.”
Not quite. A 1-0 overtime loss. No goals. No answers.
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