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Curtis Zupke grew up in Los Angeles and got hooked on hockey (along with thousands of other Southern Californians) upon Wayne Gretzky’s arrival to the Kings in 1988. He covered the Anaheim Ducks for the Orange County (Calif.) Register from 2006 to 2011.
His work has also appeared in The Hockey News, Associated Press and QMI Agency (a Quebec-based wire service that serves 250 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada).
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| The Ducks are in trouble, but who’s to blame? |
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| Pacific | |
| Written by J.P. Hoornstra | |
| Tuesday, November 02, 2010 00:00 | |
Head coach Randy Carlyle is trying to motivate his squad with little to show for his efforts in the standings. The popular scapegoat in Anaheim, however, is neither Carlyle nor anyone on the roster..jpg)
Randy Carlyle has said it often himself: The coach is usually the first to go when a good team gets off to a bad start. Will that be the case now in Anaheim, where the Ducks are an underwhelming 4-7-1?
Aside from the fact that it’s happened to struggling teams before, there are some tangible reasons why Carlyle might take the axe. The makeup of this team is different than any he’s coached in Anaheim. Its best players are forwards, not defensemen. Its core players are under 30 and led by a new captain, 25-year-old Ryan Getzlaf.
Carlyle is also the fourth-longest tenured coach in the league and maybe all the Ducks need is a new voice in the room. Especially when the message of taking fewer penalties – Anaheim leads the league at 21.8 PIM per game – isn’t getting through. Thwarting each of these arguments is a stubborn general manager, who faced the same questions when the Ducks got off to a Western Conference-worst 10-13-4 record last season, and produced a similar answer. “I’ve got total faith in Randy,” general manager Bob Murray told the Orange County Register on Monday. “He’s won a Stanley Cup. That’s not an issue here. It’s up to the players. Enough excuses. Talking about coaches and things gives them an excuse when they have no excuses in my eye.” Six players remain from the Ducks’ 2007 Stanley Cup championship squad, but none play defense. The blue line is primarily responsible for allowing a league-high 38.8 shots against per game, including 41 in a lopsided 5-2 loss to San Jose on Saturday. Scoring depth has been hard to come by, too. Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Bobby Ryan and Teemu Selanne have 18 of the team’s 29 goals.
 So there are reasons to blame the players, too – but that’s not who the fans are blaming. An unscientific poll on ocregister.com asked who is responsible for the Ducks’ poor performance. The overwhelming choice? The general manager. Citing some failed personnel decisions, columnist Helene Elliott of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “the alternative [to seeing desperation from the players] is seeing new faces – and not on the ice or on the bench.” According to the transactions archive on thehockeynews.com, Murray has acquired 47 players or draft picks since he succeeded Brian Burke as general manager in Nov. 2008. That seems like a high number for a two-year span, but it’s easier to justify considering the Ducks had only eight players signed beyond the season when Murray took the job. Many of the 47 were aimed at restocking the organizational cupboards, which were relatively bare after the team built up for its Cup run. Yet even when you set aside quantity and focus on quality, Murray’s acquisitions still leave room for second-guessing. There are few, if any, home runs among them. Saku Koivu and Lubomir Visnovsky have filled important roles as the number 2 center and number 1 defenseman, respectively, but neither is an elite player at this stage in his career. Meanwhile, there have been several busts. Samuel Pahlsson, one of the game’s best defensive forwards, was traded for defenseman James Wisniewski, who was traded for a third-round draft pick in 2011. Free-agent forward Evgeny Artyukhin went from a second-line left wing to being traded for minor-league defenseman Nathan Oystrick, whose contract was ultimately bought out. Steve Montador, a verstaile second-pair defenseman, was traded for fourth-line forward Petteri Nokelainen, who was traded for a sixth-round draft pick in 2011. The best player traded during Murray’s tenure – defenseman Chris Pronger – didn’t fetch a single player currently on the team's active roster. While you can’t blame the GM for Joffrey Lupul’s injury setbacks, you can blame him for this: Of the 47 players or draft picks Murray acquired, only 15 are on the NHL roster. Thirteen more still belong to the organization and 19 do not. Forget 4-7-1. Is a 15-13-19 record enough to get it done? NotesCoyotes LW Wojtek Wolski was a healthy scratch in back-to-back games this week. Wolski, who had a team-high 65 points in 80 games last season, had four assists and no goals through eight games. … F Lauri Korpikoski scored his first two goals of the season for Phoenix – including an empty-netter in the final minute that sealed a 4-2 win – against the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday. … C Andrew Ebbett (one goal in six games) was sent to San Antonio, the Coyotes’ AHL affiliate, on Sunday. … Kings D Drew Doughty (concussion) missed his sixth consecutive game Saturday. Los Angeles has gone 4-2 in his absence. … Head coach Terry Murray said that coaches and management will decide early this week whether to keep junior-eligible forwards Andrei Loktionov, Kyle Clifford and Brayden Schenn on the NHL roster. "That's going to be a big conversation," Murray said. "They're doing all the right things." ... Los Angeles scored an emotional victory over Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils in a 3-1 win on Saturday. The victory gave the Kings the NHL's best record at 8-3-0, the first time they have had the league's best record since Wayne Gretzky roamed The Forum in 1990-91. "It has meaning," Murray said. "We got off to a really good start last year and it paid off for us." ... Stars C Brad Richards had two assists Friday against Buffalo to give him an NHL-best 11 helpers for the season. ... Backup G Andrew Raycroft's shutout in Dallas' 4-0 win extended his season-opening shutout streak to 75 minutes. ... Eleven Sharks players attended Game 2 of the World Series in San Francisco on Thursday. ... San Jose leads the league on the power play (14 of 44, a 31.8 percent success rate). ... Joe Thornton tied a franchise record Saturday by tallying a point on eight straight Sharks goals, matching Kelly Kisio (12/3 to 12/9/1992).
Photos by Getty Images
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| Last Updated on Tuesday, November 02, 2010 03:52 |
