Sizzlin' hot seats in Anaheim

[Magnus: "Shea, ice not as comfy as Ikea." Weber: "Man, what's wrong with you guys??" photo J. Russell]

One of the main things I love about ordering fajitas at a good Mexican restaurant is the simple pleasure of hearing the sizzling sounds coming off of the very hot cast iron skillet. It lets me know that things are about to get real. Lately, rumors have been flying around that Anaheim Ducks coach, Bruce Boudreau, could possibly be in a cast iron skillet himself...except the skillet is his coaches seat. This is due to the bleak situation that the Ducks find themselves because of their abysmal start to this season. It appeared that maybe Anaheim were getting out of their funk when they soundly defeated the Wild almost a week ago at home, and as I wrote in my previous post, the lads were going to play 5 games on the road against 5 solid teams in the almighty central division. The first would be in Nashville where Anaheim were easily dispatched 5 goals to 1, and by the time the Ducks did put that one goal up on the board, it would be too little-to late. Khudobin would get the start being that he did win the last game, and although Anaheim played well in the first period, they just couldn't get anything past netminder and Finnish wall, Pekka Rinne. It would appear that the woes of Anaheim would still be there. 

With the hard reality of this not-so-great start and the loss on Thursday night, the majority of the Anaheim Ducks fanbase have started pressing the panic button. Even more so, some people are grabbing their pitchforks and torches calling for the head of Bruce Boudreau. Which brings me back to that sizzling hot seat, or rumors of him being on one. A broadcaster on Canada's own TSN even said one of the most absurd things which was that Anaheim could even fire Boudreau, but who did they suggest GM Bob Murray hire?

Randy Carlyle.

Really? Randy friggin' Carlyle? Now, let's stop and think about this: Randy Carlyle DID take Anaheim all the way where they became the first California team to win the Cup (you hearing me, Kings "fans"?), but he was fired because his system of "old-time" hockey no longer worked. Players stopped listening to him and they stopped playing for him. Today's NHL is about speedy forwards, good mobility amongst defensemen, puck possession, two-way hockey. Long gone are the days of the enforcer, and don't get me wrong, I think it's good to have a physical, stay-at-home defenseman, but they also need to be able to skate so that one could catch up to a breaking forward. The team that Barstool Bob has built this season is a faster one, much different from those who won the Cup, a team that's definitely not built for Carlyle's system (this was a coach who, in Toronto, scratched good forwards for bloody Colton Orr). Hey, while we're at it, how about we also do something insanely dumb like re-sign Sbisa and Sutton, or let's pull Penner out of his DJ booth! Maybe we can offer them Disneyland Annual Passes as incentives! Better yet, how about we just squash such rubbish ideas because if RC is back, I tweeted my prediction of what would probably happen:

["...in Anaheim" not "if". Dumb typo. PS follow me on Twitter]

In my opinion, I don't think that Boudreau is solely to blame for the problematic start. I feel that you also have to look at the team, you have to look at the leadership of Getzlaf. So far, in 6 games the "star" players such as Perry, Getzy, and Kesler have a combine 3 points. Getzy looks like he reverted back to his 2011/2012 self with his hum-drum lack luster play, Perry is not finding his spots, Hagelin and Stewart look lost, the power play is stupid, the expensive jumbotron doesn't work, the weather is still in the mid-80's and its almost the end of October...sorry...for a minute there, I lost myself. To sum it up, things aren't going the right way for the Ducks, and Boudreau is trying to do what he can to find a spark. Firing him for say, MacLean, won't be the answer. I don't even think a big trade will be the answer, either. This is something that the team have to figure out, and they must do it quickly because I have a gut feeling that if Anaheim don't win at least 3 games on this road trip, Barstool is going to shake things up. Or maybe my gut is just wanting some tasty-sizzling fajitas - I do love food. Either way, we'll see what happens today when the team play the Wild. It's gonna be tough. 

Go Ducks!