Ducks on the Move

The Stanley Cup hangover is gone. The jet lag from starting the season in England has worn off.

And here come the Stanley Cup champs, the Anaheim Ducks.

Even with the futures of Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne still in limbo, the Ducks have started to move up the Western Conference standings, demonstrating they don't plan on repeating what happened to Carolina last season, namely going from Cup winners to a non-playoff team in a season.

And - Leaf fans aren't going to like this much - they've been doing it by being very, very good in the shootout.

The Ducks began Tuesday sixth in the west, just two points out of second. They've won four straight, but over the course of November, have picked up four extra points in the standings by being perfect in the extra shots competition.

And I mean perfect.

Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere has stopped 10 of 10 shots. In fact, the only shooter to beat him in a shootout this season has been Edmonton rookie standout Sam Gagner, and Gagner required an utterly fabulous deke to do it.

That has allowed the Ducks to need only one successful shooter in each of those four shootout wins. Corey Perry did the job against Los Angeles on Nov. 13 and San Jose on Nov. 17th, Ryan Getzlaf bit the Sharks on Nov. 9th and Mathieu Schneider was the solo hero on Nov. 1st against Columbus.

Take those extra shootout points away and the Ducks are 12th in the west, still struggling.

Quite a difference, huh?

One more thing on the Ducks. We can debate over where Brian Burke ranks among NHL general managers these days. Top five for sure, maybe better than that.

But in terms of keeping the pot boiling at all times, he's clearly No. 1.

Was Anaheim ever as much a part of the regular NHL conversation as it is now? And that's not because they won it all last year, it's because there's always something happening around the team, usually due to Burke.

Even last week, he put backup goalie Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers, ostensbly because he couldn't trade him - Bryzgalov makes $1.3 million and is unrestricted at the end of this season - and because he promised to move him and give the Russian a chance elsewhere.

"Brian followed through on his word," Bryzgalov's agent, Don Meehan, told the L.A. Times.

Then as if the Ducks weren't big and ornery enough, he added a little more size and grit up the middle by acquiring centre Brian Sutherby - a 14-goal scorer in the first season after the lockout - from Washington for an '09 second rounder.

The Ducks line up different ways, but playing against a group of big, physical centres that includes Getzlaf, Rob Niedermayer, Sammy Pahlsson and now, perhaps, Sutherby, isn't going to make the Ducks any more enjoyable to play against.

Always something happening in Duck-land, that's for sure, mostly because Burke refuses to let his team fade from the headlines as he pushes the game in southern California.

Comments

[mark]

Burke may be a bit of headline seeker (and perhaps in California, that's a necessity). But the two moved you highlighted also point to a GM who isn't afraid to make some moves. Maybe JFJ could take a page from Burke's book. The Leafs don't need the headlines (duh..understatment of the year), but boy it sure wouldn't hurt to take a marginal player and float him on waivers, particularly if you need some cap room. Burke also demonstates that trades are still possible in the new NHL... difficult and not of the blockbuster type... but still possible. Most importantly in my estimation, both of these moves do something that the Leafs could use on occasion: they shake up the team a bit and let everyone know that management is paying attention and maybe, (just maybe) prove that JFJ isn't a total lame duck.

[Solroger]

What is going on? Is Cox actually making sense these days? Nice read. Must be global warming or something.

[redplague]

Damien...
Where's the outrage?
It would be impossible to quibble with giving Burke, for now, top 5 status as a GM as--despite the rather incredible amount of good fortune he had on the Stanley Cup run eg. the very good Neidermeyer brother deciding to play with his Fredo...um...brother etc.--ultimately, his Ducks won.
I'm just wondering, as someone who, on issues such as an organization's responsibility to punish 18 year-olds who touch tongues with others, views yourself as something of the moral compass of the league, what was your take on Burke's use of his Stanley-Cup-winner-bully-pulpit to mount the strangly obsessive (by volume) ego-maniacal and petulant personal attacks on Kevin Lowe? Doesn't this hurt his status? Certainly there can't be anyone left who doesn't think Burke's analysis of Penner's signing is solid (although the significantly worse Bertuzzi signing might have muted his bombast). However, in a cowardly and bullying manner reminicent of the hulking Bertuzzi's attack on Moore, he repeatedly heaps scorn on an executive in a weak position, rebuilding in a city where free agents are loath to go (this is no defense of Lowe who is, by any reasonable assessment, a really bad GM). One-off diatribes by GM's against the league, refs, another GM, maybe even their own under-achieving players are certainly defensible, maybe even effective at times. There is, however, no way an intelligent, professional, competent and well adjusted General Manager goes on that berate Lowe media tour. Ever. Its probably worth noting that if the NHL had a commisioner he or she would have quietly stepped in to shut people up early in a situation deeply embarassing for the League.
More to the point, what do you think the collective reaction by the "Leaf-Nation-Sportswriters" village if JFJ let an extremely valuable and cheap asset go for nothing in the middle of a season? I'd especially love to see the reaction if he claimed to be doing it for the purely altruistic reasons. If Giguerre goes down with a serious injury isn't this one of the worst moves by a GM in recent history? If it does happen here's hoping Lowe hits the interview circuit on his way to the golf course when the regular season ends.
p.s. I'm aware that the smug "if JFJ won a cup he would be able to write his own ticket..." would appear in every "Leaf-Nation-Sportswriter's" response here.