Ducks earn first home win against the Wild, 3-2.
Summary:
First Period: A perfect Ducks period with two early goals from Perry. Defensive coverage was excellent and didn’t allow the Wild any good opportunities to shoot at Hiller. Passing was crisp, and allowed the Ducks to spend most of the period in the offensive zone since they barely turned over the puck.
Second Period: As expected, the Wild made some adjustments during the first intermission. The Wild made a good effort fighting back offensively, and took the larger share of scoring chances and shots. They capitalized on a turn over and a defensive mistake by Luca Sbisa.
Third Period: Three power plays for the Ducks during the third, but were unable to score. Ducks did well keeping the puck in the Wild’s end, but tried to make too many fancy plays. With nine seconds left in the game, Andrew Brunette made a goal in on a bad rebound by Hiller.
The Ducks earned their first home win of the season with a solid 60 minute effort. The most important aspect was their strong first period, which has been a weakness throughout the beginning of this season.
Good pressure by the Ducks on the power plays, but they do need to work more on getting the puck into the back of the net, and less on fancy passes.
The top line had a bevy of scoring chances tonight, and two goals from Perry. I still think that we have a couple games before we should start getting really concerned about the lack of production from Getzlaf and Ryan. Both have had great scoring opportunities so far, and once Getzlaf finally makes his first goal of the season, I would bet that he’ll make up for the lost time in short order. The key for this line is making simple plays and shooting the puck more. Goal production does have to start coming out of this line more consistently though since it appears that Selanne has cooled off from his stellar start.
There was good discipline on the ice, with the Ducks only offering the Wild four power play chances. One of those Ducks penalties was a roughing call from the Artyukhin fight, which I don’t feel is a negative reflection upon the team’s efforts.
It will be interesting to watch the PIM for the Ducks over the balance of the season. The roster and system has changed a lot since the Stanley Cup campaign of 06-07, where it is extremely hazardous for the Ducks to continue to get penalized left and right. This is especially important with the loss of Chris Pronger since the Ducks are unable to have either Scott Niedermayer or Pronger on the ice at all times while short-handed.
Luca Sbisa once again was caught making a defensive mistake that led to a goal. These mistakes are going to happen throughout the beginning of the season with the younger talent on the blueline now. The Ducks will have to keep this in mind and work around it, but I guarantee that Sbisa, Eminger, Mikkelson, and Boynton will grow by leaps and bounds while patrolling the the blueline with Niedermayer during the season.
Looking ahead, the next game is on Saturday at home against the St. Louis Blues. I think we’ll see a closer contest against the Blues than we saw against the Wild. Andy Mac and Kariya (boo) have both had relatively good starts so far.
