Struggling Anaheim Ducks Can’t Catch A Break
The Anaheim Ducks were a team expected to compete for the Stanley Cup this season. Last year, they finished in a tie for the best record in the Western Conference and advanced all the way to the Conference Finals before being eliminated by eventual champions Chicago. They were a team that no one wanted to play due to their blend of size, strength and toughness. Teams never had an easy time playing the Anaheim Ducks due to their physicality but the team also had skill. It wasn’t a case that faster, more talented teams could easily beat the Ducks. Simply put, they were the toughest opponent to match up against in the NHL.
Last season’s success makes this season’s struggles all the more surprising. After the first two weeks of the season the Anaheim Ducks are 1-5-2 and tied for the worst record in the league. The Ducks’ defense hasn’t been awful but almost inexplicably the offense has completely disappeared. Heading in to Tuesday’s game at Dallas the Ducks had scored 6 goals in 8 games for an average of 0.75 goals per game. They’ve been shut out in five of their eight games this season and have only scored more than one goal in a game once this year. So far the team has continued to play hard despite the adversity but at some point it would seem that the Ducks would just collapse from the combined weight of expectations and underachievement.
Making the Ducks dismal start to the season more inexplicable–they’ve been relatively healthy up until this point. It’s one thing for a team to struggle without their top stars. It’s another thing entirely for the top stars to be completely snakebit on the offensive end of the ice. And things look as if they’ll get worse before they get better. On Tuesday, it was announced that center Ryan Getzlaf had flown back to Los Angeles to have what is being described as a ‘non emergency appendectomy’. Getzlaf will miss somewhere between a week and two weeks recovering from the procedure. Getzlaf has not scored a goal this season, has only one point and is minus five in eight games played.