Game Notes: Ducks Get Struck By Lightning

Here are my notes from a Ducks 4-3 loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning. I have broken this up into three sections: “Pluses” (positives from the game), “Minuses” (negatives from the game), and an “Open Ice” section for overall thoughts and random notes.

pluses

• Lukas Dostal is Still That Guy

  • Dostal made a number of all-important saves on dangerous looks for Tampa Bay. He was excellent while shorthanded, particularly on the Lightning’s 5-on-3 advantage. He is worth every penny of his contract.

• Drew Helleson Takes a Step

  • For my money, this was the best game I’ve seen Drew Helleson play in the NHL. That might be hyperbolic (and someone might show me a Hockey Stat Card that says otherwise), but I’ll stand by it.

  • What made it great? Primarily, it was the offense. Helleson was aggressively pinching in the offensive zone, extending possession. He also showed some added flair at the blueline, dangling past a flat footed defender, pulling the exact same move his buddy Jackson LaCombe did a few games ago.

  • Defensively, he’s not perfect. But, he was engaged physically at the net front, and his puck retrievals/breakouts are simply professional grade. When the puck gets dumped into the corner, he has the strength to fend off a forechecker, and the smarts/poise to make a smart play with the puck.

• Jacob Trouba’s Offense

  • Trouba fired home a rocket of a shot, post and in on the short side, a true work of art. Painted as a defensive defenseman, Trouba doesn’t get enough credit for his offense. He looks to join the rush and sneak in on the weak side when he can.

• Mikael Granlund’s Passing

  • Unfortunately Granlund went down with what appeared to be a non-contact injury, which is extremely unfortunate. Prior to going down, Granlund connected on a couple of perfect tape to tape passes into the slot.

  • The first pass was on the power play, expertly ladling the puck into the slot from the flank. The second pass was even better, whipping a pass across his body from the blueline onto Troy Terry’s stick near the slot.

  • Granlund’s absence was particularly difficult in a game where the Ducks struggled to generate high quality offensive chances. The veteran forward is one of the few Ducks who can consistently thread passes into middle ice, even against a stout Tampa team.

Minuses

• Attention to Detail

  • Once again, the Ducks periodic lapses in judgment came back to haunt them. The most damning sequence came in the last two minutes of the game, where they simply could not exit their own zone.

  • On one hand, you can say that has more to do with Tampa being great. But look more carefully, and there were multiple instances on that sequence that had nothing to do with Tampa.

  • For one, Olen Zellweger had a clear lane to exit the zone, but took two or three extra stickhandles before floating a backhand into the middle, leading to a turnover.

  • Shortly thereafter, Helleson made a similar error. Earlier in the sequence, Beckett Sennecke recovered a puck down behind the net, and instead of chipping it out quickly, he made two or three extra moves that gave Tampa the time it needed to close in on him, eventually leading to a turnover.

  • That’s where this team’s inexperience really shows. In the moments where it’s time to make the simple, winning plays, they shoot themselves in the foot. It’s not to be unexpected for a team with so many young players.These are the lessons teams have to go through to eventually turn the corner.

  • Thankfully, much of what the Ducks are struggling with in that area is fixable. If this coaching staff is as good as it is believed to be, there should be improvement within the next 20 games or so.

• Mintyukov’s Retrievals

  • Teams may be starting to target Mintyukov on the forecheck. Tampa repeatedly dumped the puck into Mintyukov’s corner throughout this game, and came back out with control quite often.

  • Mintyukov has the right intentions when going back for the puck, as he does look to engage physically. Whether it’s not taking the proper angle, or still lacking in the strength department, something appears to be missing.

  • The rest of his game looks good, but retrievals are such a bread and butter skill that it does limit how much of an impact he can really have, until he improves.

Open Ice

• Overall Thoughts

  • The Ducks did well to hang in there against an elite Eastern Conference foe that was motivated to break a losing streak. A litany of penalties, paired with key mistakes defensively, were their ultimate undoing. The offense also was not especially potent, despite putting up 40 shots. Heavy volume on net was good, but they rarely found themselves connecting on dangerous passes in the slot throughout the game.

• Joel Quenneville’s Pairing Juggling

  • Quenneville is the first coach I’ve seen to juggle his defensive pairings this much in-game, to mixed results in this one.

  • The Zellweger-Trouba pairing has been quite good this season, so splitting them up in favor of LaCombe-Trouba raised an eyebrow for me. Then putting Mintyukov with Helleson also was intriguing. Maybe Quenneville thought Helleson could help stabilize Mintyukov? Ian Moore was then paired with Zellweger.

  • The takeaway seems to be that Mintyukov and Moore are the guys Quenneville feels like he has to shelter in these closer games. We’ll see what the pairings look like next game.

• Cutter Gauthier’s Shot Selection

  • Cutter Gauthier had a whopping 12 shot attempts in this game, including 7 shots on goal.

  • That knife cuts both ways. On one bad angle shot, the puck bounced out to the slot and led to a Troy Terry goal.

  • But, on another sequence earlier in the game, Gauthier gains the zone, and with a teammate open on the wing with space, elects to take a long distance shot with no traffic in front.

  • You could see what Gauthier was thinking: look off the shot, try to catch the goalie off guard, and maybe it leads to something. The problem is that NHL goalies are just too good to beat like that from distance.

  • Immediately after the play, the camera flashed to Jay Woodcroft getting in Gauthier’s ear on the bench. We have no way of knowing what was said, but I’d bet they were going over that sequence.

  • Everyone knows Gauthier is a great shooter, but it’s all about time and place. Move the puck to get it back in an even more dangerous spot. The more coaching he gets on this, the sooner he’ll strike a better balance.

• Ryan Poehling’s Presence

  • Poehling got on the board — off a perfect Ross Johnston assist — and was generally solid throughout the night. He’s really fit in seamlessly on the fourth line, bringing a reliable game thanks to his skating ability.