ANAHEIM, Calif. – It might not have thrilled the
other 13 playoff-hungry teams in the Western Conference, but the Anaheim Ducks'
3-2 shootout win over the Calgary Flames Monday night went a ways towards
exorcizing the shootout demons that haven't exactly graced the team with a
superfluous amount of points in recent history.
In the club's first Honda Center shootout since a similar 3-2 win over Calgary
on December 10, 2010, Jonas Hiller stopped six of eight shooters and Niklas
Hagman buried the game winner past Miikka Kiprusoff in the eighth round as the
Ducks extended their uphill climb towards the Stanley Cup playoffs. Hagman was
denied as a member of the Flames in the previous Honda Center shootout last
season.
"It's a goalie that I've practiced a lot against, quite a bit,"
Hagman said about facing Kiprusoff, a fellow teammate in Calgary and with the
Finnish national team. "I don't have that many moves. He knows my go-to
moves. I try to switch it up a little bit. I wanted to come with good speed,
and I wanted to shoot it. Luckily for me, he probably thought that I'm going to
go with my backhand."
With his game winner, Hagman denied Kiprusoff's first attempt at earning the
300th win of his career.
"Too bad I had to ruin it," Hagman said. "He's a world class
goalie and he gives a team a chance to win every night."
The Ducks take to home ice once more, a Wednesday tilt with Carolina, before
heading out on the season's longest road trip, a two-week, eight-game marathon
that begins in Detroit on Friday and ends at Carolina on Thursday, Feb. 23.
They'll play at Columbus, Minnesota, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Florida and Tampa
in between.
There already seems to be a mission on this upcoming trip, per coach Bruce
Boudreau: narrow the gap.
"Whether it's home or road, the biggest thing to me is getting into that
50-point thing," Boudreau said. "When you're in the 40's, and the
other teams are in the 50's, or even at 60, it seems so distant. But when you
get into the 50-point range, you see a light at the end of the tunnel. It
doesn't seem as far, whether it's just perception or not. So you get into that
50-point, and then all of a sudden there's 14 teams bunched in between 50 and
60, and it seems really a realistic thing to catch.
"And that's what we want to do. Get into the 50-point thing. Go on the
road – LA's in the middle of it, Detroit's just finished it – it's a grueling
schedule. We've got to do it."
After Monday's action, Anaheim sat 10 points behind eighth-place Minnesota with
48 points and a 20-24-8 record. There are four teams between the Ducks and
Wild, though Anaheim did itself a favor by picking up a pair of points against
a team that they're battling with for that eighth playoff spot, even if Calgary
earned a point in the shootout loss.
"I'd rather give up one and gain two," Boudreau said.
When asked after the game whether the team looks back at missed opportunities
during its woeful November and December stretch, Bobby Ryan gave an honest
assessment.
"I have, yeah, but you're really trying not to. I think at this point it's
all about moving forward and just letting the past be the past," Ryan
said. "I think if we fall short at the end of the year, then we would
really reflect on it. But right now, we're coming to the rink ready to play
every night. [Hiller] continues to be good, our line starts to get on a role,
you know, we're getting contributions from the second and third line."
"I think we can do a lot of damage."
NOTES: Former Anaheim coach and current Calgary associate coach Craig
Hartsburg spoke to the media instead of head coach Brent Sutter after the game.
"I think the game itself was a little bit of a rollercoaster,"
Hartsburg said. "I thought we had a good first 10 minutes and the last 10
minutes of the first period weren't very good at all. We had to kill some key
penalties in the second and battle back to get a point. So obviously we had
some chances, especially in the shootout. Three or four times we had a chance
to win it, but we didn't. You get to the point and you've got to move on, move
forward." … Anaheim extended its home winning streak against Calgary
to 14 games. The Ducks last lost at home to the Flames on January 19, 2004.
Anaheim has points in 24 of 26 overall against Calgary, going 21-2-3 since
March 28, 1999. … The Ducks are 10-2-2 in their last 14 games and
have outscored their opponents 30-19 in their last 10, going 7-2-1.
… Boudreau, on Jonas Hiller: "He was great, but he's been great for
a month and a half."
