Well, 6-0 on this trip was always a bit fanciful, wasn’t it? The Hawks weren’t awful, but neither were they good, and the Ducks played well, especially JS Giguere. Which figured, as I called him out during the preview, and I can kick start a pack of dead elephants, it would seem. There was assuredly going to be a bit of a sharp comedown after Wednesday, but this was a bit too sharp. Hopefully, the Hawks have learned they can’t just show up and that’ll be enough, because especially after Wednesday’s scoreline was seen across the league, they’re going to get everyone’s best every night.
The game turned in the 2nd, and we’ve seen it before. Ladd didn’t bury his chance, and the counter led to Sopel hooking Getzlaf on his breakaway — though I’m not sure how much he actually hooked him, but any contact on a breakaway is a penalty, so there’s not too much to complain about. The Ducks scored on the ensuing power play, one of two goals that can be attributed to just bad bounces. On this one, Seabrook banged a clearing attempt off Selanne’s ankle into the net, giving Selanne yet another annoying goal against the Hawks, which he seemingly has 342 of.
The first one is a similar story, though I didn’t see it live as I’m sure much of you didn’t as Comcast went a little goofy. It appeared the “pass” to Perry took at least two deflections, the last off Perry himself and landed right at his stick for him to find an open Selanne in the slot of annoying goal #1. Sometimes you get these bounces, sometimes you don’t. Though they found a way to let the surprisingly-ugly Nick Boynton to blast one home with two Ducks screening Huet unattended Though the statsheet is going to look awful, it didn’t seem to me at least that the Ducks’ PP was hemming us in or creating chance after chance. But they buried the ones they did get, and that’s all that matters.
After that the Hawks had some chances to get back into it, but Giggy was always there. Things looked out of sync all afternoon. Too many cute moves at the blue line that were broken up, not enough dump-ins reclaimed. A team of Anaheim’s size will always give us trouble. Though I doubt the Ducks wanted this game to be this open, it served them well. Doubt they’d get away with it next time, but we’ll find that out in December.
Well, now the Hawks can’t have one eye on the plane home tomorrow night on Figueroa Ave. in LA tomorrow. 4-2 would still be a wildly successful trip, but ending on a two-game skid would leave everyone with a bad taste. I expect some fire to be being breathed by the Hawks, against a Kings‘ team that is starting to back up.
Nuts.