Ben Shelley: Ducks showing signs of improvement despite poor record

This team is a work in progress. We knew the focus would be on improving team D and you can see the results, along with the upgrade in talent with Mintyukov and LaCombe (and Gudas/Lyubushkin). Consider Luneau a 9-game tryout. While he's here, he's getting better coaching and competition than he would get in the Q. At some point they'll need to send him back to Gatineau to get minutes and to play in the WJC.

After watching McT wear down towards the end of last season, I'm OK with managing Carlsson's workload early in the season, especially on back-to-back nights.

Overall I'm happy with the start to this season, apart from some ugly special teams work and the penalty parade. Goals will come eventually and a few more W's will follow.

Set absolutely rotten puck luck… along with a bad habit of taking too many penalties.. and playing a pretty brutal schedule has led to the record so far…

We are so much better than last year it’s not even in the same solar system..

Cronin has raised the bar and the expectations which is great to see…

The wins will start to flow…

The effort is definitely there, and that's all that you can ask of these kids right now. I LOVED Cronin's criticism of the offence after the Boston game. Where we sit at the Ponda, you can see shooting lanes develop during the play. Way too often Terry, Zegras, McTavish try to make one or two extra moves rather than taking the shot that's available to them! That's how Boston scored their 2 goals in the third, threw shots on the net, and got rebounds. Shoot the puck, boys!
The kids definitely look promising, though. For all of the hype on Zellweger, Mintyukov looks like the real deal. LaCombe looks future top 4, too. But man, Drysdale on IR worries me! I'm hoping he doesn't turn into another Joffrey Lupul or Ondrej Kase.

Well Cronin wants more shots in the slot. And it's gonna take while before Ducks players are use to shooting there. The heat maps show most goals are scored between the face off dots in front of the goalie. It's just that if you actually watch the games. He would realize most of the primary and secondary assists are happening outside the slot. So I take from this is yes, he is correct. Shoot more from the slot. But in my opinion that's not where those great shots are actually generated from. There generated from quick passes into the slot, rebounds of of goalies, players skating into the zone with speed, turnovers in the neutral zone, tip-ins in front of the net, ect. So those heat maps need to be taken with a grain of salt.

And buy the way. I really like Cronins fire. Haven't seen someone the passionate since a young Randy Carlyle took over in 2005. And I hope he just keeps working at it. This Ducks team is very raw. And whatever Cronin decides to teach these young Ducks, is just going to take a while. Just alot of repetition and practice time. But so far I'm impressed.

I gotta say that Boston game wasn't going to be a win. The Bruins are just too well coached and every player on there team plays together in a system.

The Ducks are still figuring it out. There are making up for lack of execution with effort and depth. The skill really hasn't shown up yet as much as I hoped. Nut the players and coaches are probably still feeling it out.

Solid win last night... Z benched for the entire 3rd after a couple brutal giveaways on the PP.. interesting.

Frankie V... finisher...