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Ducks blanked in Ottawa; Gibson hurt

February 8, 2019, 12:09 AM ET [12 Comments]
Steve Palumbo
Colorado Avalanche Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Ottawa Senators have the fewest points in the NHL and on Thursday night they became the latest team to knock around the Anaheim Ducks.

Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Sens shutout and shutdown the Ducks, 4-0.

Senators' netminder, Anders Nilsson, turned aside 45 shots to earn his first shutout of the season. Brady Tkachuk, Mark Stone and Matt Duchene (2g) provided the offense. It was Ottawa's first win since 1/18, snapping a five-game losing streak.

The Ducks continued to look all kings of twisted up. They extended the current losing streak to six games, while falling to 0-4 on this trip. Mercifully, the road trip comes to an end on Saturday in Philadelphia. The Flyers are 8-0-1 in their last nine games.

I mean it doesn't get much worse than losing badly to the "worst" team in the NHL. Does it? Oh yes it does....

John Gibson did not return for the third period after he was apparently injured when he and Jaycob Megna collided. Chad Johnson came in relief. Gibson's been pulled in four straight starts.

It's not known how serious the Gibson injury is at this time, but if it's anything more than just being sick and tired of losing.... *shudder* .... Let the tanking commence.

The Ducks didn't play a terrible game. Anaheim out shot and out chanced the Sens by a substantial margin, but Nilsson held them off the board. For the game, Anaheim held a heavy advantage 5v5. The game came down to making the most of the opportunities presented. Ottawa had slightly more high-danger chances and capitalized. That was the difference.

The Ducks are a psychologically fragile team. An early goal would have gone a long way in helping them build up some kind of confidence. Instead, Nilsson's play frustrated them and it eventually started messing with their heads.

Even if the numbers say otherwise, the game was visually sloppy. The Ducks lacked anything resembling cohesion. They were skating into each others lanes and passing to vacated spaces. Some of you have called it worse that a pick-up game at the Rinks. That's disrespectful to those of us that play pick-up at the Rinks.

Seriously though, reality has finally set in - the Ducks, as constructed, are not going to be competitive. Perhaps a little bit of losing can help cleanse the organization of its staleness. I'm pretty sure it couldn't be any worse than it is now. Besides, at the very least, they would be working towards something, instead of chasing what's no longer there.

Thanks for reading,
Steve
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