The new season

With the start of the season underway and 2 games in for Anaheim (who are also set to play their 3rd tonight at the Honda Center), the Ducks sit with a record of 0-1-1 earning only 1 standings point from Monday night's home opener shootout loss against the Canucks. Anaheim opened the season on the road in San Jose when they were blanked by the Sharks in a 0-2 loss. But hey, what kind of Ducks season would it be without losing the first game?? The Ducks started out this years campaign with a handful of new faces from trades and free agent signings. Clearly, the chemistry has yet to be instilled, but many pundits have chosen Anaheim to take it all this year. Anaheim added Carl Hagelin, Chris Stewart, Shaun Horcoff, Anton Khudobin, Kevin Bieksa, and Mike Santorelli to join their ranks. At the same time, we said goodbye to Palms, Beauch, Flash, Wiz, and my all-time favorite: Style & Grace aka The Invisible Man aka Emerson Etem.  

With the team re-tooled, the start of training camp showed that the boys would be determined to do some damage this season by displaying their typical all too motivational team motto that adorned on the backs of each players shirt. The motto was: "close is not good enough", after having been eliminated in an all too important game 7 against the villainous (see accused rapist Patrick Kane and his supportive team) NHL Blackhawks in the Western Conference Final. So far, these past two games have shown us some promising play mixed in with bad habits (i.e. Getzy still doing boneheaded Getzy things). This years Ducks are definitely faster which Barstool Bob wanted to improved on in the offseason. Still in need of improvement is the PP which was the reason Anaheim's brass signed ex-Ottawa Senators coach and spot-on Wilford Brimley impersonator, Paul MacLean.   

Though, at this infant stage of the new season, it's still unseen if Oggi's still holds a curse on Anaheim's JMG sponsored PP as well as if the team can click enough to be the ones many have deemed to be this year champions of Lord Stanley's ultimate piece in his fine china, or will they come "close" once again? I for one am definitely looking forward to see what happens.   

Go Ducks!  

PS notable home season opener moments: animal rights activists protesting outside the HC due to Clayton Stoner hunting a beloved bear in Canada when he wasn't even on the Ducks roster. No, thankfully it wasn't Winnie the Pooh. The debut of Honda Center's new state of the art jumbotron along with a new sound system and the ability of projecting 3D image mapping onto the ice... which wasn't used for the opening ceremonies because apparently the Ducks love being lack luster when it comes to such things. Oh, and new boards/glass panels! It's the little things.