The Anaheim Ducks have dealt with enough adversity this season to last a lifetime. What's one more humiliating loss to pile onto the already smoldering dumpster fire?
The shorthanded and defensively deficient Ducks couldn't hang with a fortuitous Chicago Blackhawks team on Monday night at the United Center. Instead, Anaheim fell victim to a lopsided 7-3 defeat by the hands of those very same Blackhawks.
It was all fun and games for the Hawks who were led offensively by 19-year-old rookie forward Alex DeBrincat. The kid recorded his first career hat trick and ended the night with four points. While Patrick Sharp, Brandon Saad, Artem Anisimov and Nick Schmaltz made up the rest of the scoring. Corey Crawford held the Ducks pop-gun offense at bay with 25 stops en route to the his 11th win of the season.
Chris Wagner managed record the first multi-goal game of his career. So there's that.
The real story of the game was the Ducks atrocious defense. Lazy stick work, poor puck decisions and a terrible transition game led to multiple Chicago chances and the results speak for themselves. The Ducks allowed Chicago too much open ice. They must have used up all their physicality in the L.A. game because they brought none of that with them to the Windy City.
John Gibson was average on a night that he couldn't afford to be. He allowed four goals on 22 shots before being yanked and replaced with Ryan Miller.
This was not the way the Ducks were hoping to start this road trip. There are no breaks ahead because the schedule doesn't get any easier after this. Anaheim still has games against the St. Louis Blues, Columbus Blue Jackets, Nashville Predators and Vegas Golden Knights before they finally come home to Anaheim next week. BTW, those four teams have combined for 61 wins in 93 games. Those teams are stupid good.
Anaheim's lost its last four-in-a-row (0-3-1) and have been outscored 16-7 along the way. Their record falls to 10-10-4 with 24 points (6th Pacific). Thankfully none of the bubble teams out West are pulling away yet...yet. Anaheim remains just two points out of the final wild card position. But, if they can't pull it together and steal some points on this trip they could dead in the water by the time they return to the Katella Krazies next Wednesday.
Remember this team is playing without the likes of Patrick Eaves, Ryan Getzlaf, Ondrej Kase, Ryan Kesler and now Rickard Rakell. Those are some of the Ducks heaviest hitters and lets be honest - the Ducks have never been the same team without their captain on the ice.
There are, however, no excuses being made by anyone in that Duck locker room. They know how to win hockey games - important hockey games - even without all of their personnel healthy. But. one has to wonder if the onslaught of injuries will eventually catch up to them and wear them out, not only physically, but mentally.
Perhaps the loss in Chicago was rock bottom and just the wake up call they needed or perhaps it was just a sign of things to come for this battered and bruised bunch. I'm sure the picture will be much clearer once the dust settles on the rest of this trip.
Thanks for reading, Steve