With Flames on brink, Ducks coach Boudreau careful not to look ahead
In the now-infamous words of Frederik Andersen, the Anaheim Ducks have their foot on the throat of their opponents, and it's time to finish them off.
The Anaheim goaltender's wise words from Winnipeg are now striking the same cord they did two weeks ago when the Ducks closed out their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff series in just four games. Now in the second round with a 3-1 lead on the Calgary Flames, the Ducks are back in control and looking for a quick close.
But as close as the Western Conference Finals might appear, the next round still isn't close enough to feel just yet.
"I try not to think about it," Ducks' coach Bruce Boudreau said on a conference call following the team's arrival back in Anaheim, Saturday afternoon. "I'm just trying to think -- and I know it's a cliché -- about tomorrow. Because if you think about tomorrow and it goes successfully, then everything else will take care of itself and then you'll have enough time to think about the other things.
"I haven't put really any thought into playing Chicago at all."
Recent history would show that Anaheim hasn't had much success in clinching games, having not reached the conference finals since 2007, the year they won the Cup.
Boudreau himself, has never coached past the conference semifinals.
But the Ducks of now and the Bruce of new say that trend can be bucked. There was the Game 6 win in Dallas last season, when the Ducks rallied back in the final minutes to win, and there was the exceptionally complete Game 4 victory in Winnipeg only a few short weeks ago -- the game that Boudreau most wants his team to emulate.
"Game 4 in Winnipeg was as complete a game as we've played all year and I think it's going to take that kind of effort to win Game 5 tomorrow," he said. "In other words, we can't have lapses where they're deking us one-on-one, where we score a goal and they come back right after it, where we're not engaged with them physically. If any of these things happen, then it's a good chance that we won't be successful."
The margin for error is slim, which is exactly why Boudreau isn't thinking anywhere past 7 p.m. Sunday night.
"The minute you start thinking about putting the cart before the horse, you're in trouble," Boudreau said. "We've got a really tough opponent who will be very, very motivated tomorrow. If our mindset is not completely on them, then we're in trouble."
Power play prowess
The Ducks went from having the third-worst power play in the regular season to the second-best in the postseason. What's changed? Well, not much. The personnel and the system are the same, but the focus might be sharper.
"It's the same power play," Boudreau said. "We know what we're supposed to be doing and we're doing it and I think that's been the biggest difference on the power play -- the attention to the details."
Power play quarterback Sami Vatanen said the power play units haven't been doing anything different, but they have been working during the many off-days on puck movement. It's paid off: The Ducks 28.4 power play conversion rate is the best of the remaining teams (Minnesota's 30.4 rate is still tops).
"We've just been playing our own game," Vatanen said. "Shooting pucks, getting some traffic at the net and we've been moving the puck really good there. The puck moves much faster than the players there on the ice, so we've been working really hard here. It needs to be really good in the playoffs if you want to go far."
Lineup changes
After sitting out the first three games, Boudreau felt that winger Tomas Fleischmann showed some rust in Game 4, but ultimately was happy with his performance. The coach says that no lineup changes are anticipated at the moment.
