SB Nation - Jean-Sebastien Giguere

Sitting Duck

Arthur from Anaheim Calling — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 09:56:04 -0000

More photos » by Chris Carlson - AP

ARTHUR:

The first true deviation from "you win, you're in" produced a victory for the Ducks, but it's hard to credit Giguere as a factor in the W as the Stars took less than 10 shots after solving the netminder three times. Jiggy will likely get the crease until the coaching staff decides he falls short of the new criterion (apparently unrelated to winning or losing).

Daniel, we both agreed that Carlyle should abolish the "you win, you're in" system, but will the new system make it more difficult for Murray to choose which goaltender he should trade?

DANIEL:

I don't think it will give Murray too much trouble in picking a goalie to trade. Murray has a tendency to just do what he wants. See the deconstruction of the checking line at last year's trade deadline, and the inexplicable signing of some 8 mediocre free agent defensemen, instead of one good one. When Murray wants to make a move, he makes one.

I complain a lot about Murray, but I think there is one thing I can definitively say about him as a GM: he won't let a free agent just walk. To me, that means that if Giguere just continues to play marginally well, Hiller will definitely get moved, simply because Murray won't let him walk for nothing. The fact is, HIller's impending UFA status makes him great trade bait in the salary cap era. Of course, his occasional flashes of brilliance help with that too, but a goalie rental for a paranoid team like the Blackhawks who almost HAVE to win this year will yield a great return.

I can't help but think that this system will inevitably drive up the value of the goalie who isn't playing. Teams won't be able to see the guy on the bench, and therefore won't be able to dissect his game as much. Instead, Murray can always say "Everyone struggled early on" and try to hide behind the team's overall struggles rather than any specific holes in a goalie's play. In the end, if Jiggy is the one who keeps manning the pipes, then HIller will be moved just to make sure he doesn't leave.

ARTHUR:

I don't think the new system will be problematic, just because I don't think these two were ever the type of player to flourish in a "you win, you're in" system. It's a romantic notion that Murray and Carlyle held, believing that one of these guys would go on a winning streak and force the other one out of the crease and, indeed, out of Anaheim. But nothing Jiggy and Hiller have done suggests that that was the best way to choose between them. Giguere doesn't perform well without his own confidence, much less the confidence of his coach, and Hiller flourished because he was given the starting job without the pressure of losing it.

I think Giguere will play a stretch until his performance degrades, then Hiller will play a stretch until his performance degrades and then the Ducks will choose and trade. And they really could have done that in November and had a guy out the door by now.

But I also think that Murray's already picked Hiller, and not just because he's already talked to Burke about Toskala. Right now, there is every reason to believe that Anaheim will be a rebuilding team next year and not the sort of team that can (or should) keep a 6M man between the pipes. And if we did keep Giguere, the netminder would have Murray over a barrel at the end of next year, when our goaltending alternative would be Justin Pogge.

Moving Giguere offers the team more flexibility. I'm not saying Murray will use that flexibility to pursue Turco or Nabokov this offseason, but there are plenty of situations that are preferable to having 6.6M tied up in the expiring contracts of Giguere and Pogge.

The Rumor Mill: Toskala Trade Still A Possibility?

Arthur from Anaheim Calling — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:27:41 -0000

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ARTHUR:
USA Today reports that Bob Murray was in the Air Canada Centre press box last night. That's the news.

The rumor is tied to the fact that last night was Vesa Toskala's first start since Nov. 23rd, and the goaltender came away with a win. According to Randy Youngman, there were preliminary talks for a Giguere/Toskala trade in early November. Obviously, nothing has materialized, but the Ducks have since, reportedly, inquired into the availability of other Toronto players, such as Niklas Hagman. Bob Murray's attendance could mean that a Toronto trade, principally involving Toskala, is still a viable option during Youngman's "long before the trade deadline" timeframe.

You Can't Ride Two Horses . . .

Arthur from Anaheim Calling — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:07:11 -0000

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ARTHUR:

Anaheim let yet another victory slide out of their hands last night as, for the second time in as many efforts at Xcel, they let the Wild climb back into the game and claim the victory in overtime.

Daniel, there's a tendency to talk bounces and the nonsense of 'living right' when you have to listen to John Ahlers all year, but there is a fundamental problem with this team. Even in games where the 'effort' was supposedly there for 60 minutes, the Ducks are giving away wins on so-called flukes. Where is the real problem? Is it coaching, offense, defense or goaltending?

DANIEL:

Hmmm . . . all of the above.

This is a difficult thing to nail down. The fact is, as soon as the Ducks fix one thing, something else goes wrong. Against the Stars, we fail to convert multiple scoring chances, and as a result a couple of bad goals lead to a loss. If our offense had shown up, we probably wouldn't have been as deterred by the one bad goal. Tonight, we have a two goal lead and give it up in the final five minutes, clearly a defensive problem. The inability to be consistent and keep everyone focused is a coaching problem.

The only problem I don't think we've had recently is between the pipes. Giguere was on a tear at home, and I'm not sure Carlyle should have interrupted that streak. I know Jiggy lost, but he put together the most impressive string of wins we've had all year. Let the guy hold onto the job for a while, and see if he can keep it at one loss.

In the interest of making a selection, I will begrudgingly say coaching is the problem. It seems to me that the Ducks are incapable of finishing, and that comes from a lack of focus. I know that's a tough thing to hang on a coach, as he can't necessarily control his players' focus, but he should be able to appropriately motivate them. I have been a strong advocate that Bob Murray made multiple mistakes with his player acquisitions, and that this has affected Carlyle's ability to execute his system. I still believe this. However, at some point, you have to make do with what you've got, and Carlyle has proven to be as hesitant as his GM. He engages in constant line shuffling, a lack of confidence in his young players and an inability to let players work through their adversity, choosing instead to simply scratch or otherwise move a player around the lineup. His lack of confidence in other players has led to an overuse of both the top line and Scott Niedermayer.

The Ducks are disorganized, and that is a symptom of an organization in disarray, not the ineptitude of the players. Although, there is plenty of that as well.

ARTHUR:

I'm going to completely disagree and say goaltending is the problem and the only problem in the games where we blow a lead late. The team is making a better effort to closeout 3rd periods, probably their best effort of the season last game, and it still wasn't enough. If this were baseball, and a team was giving away games in the 9th, games where they had run support, why wouldn't you blame the bullpen? Why wouldn't this be a closing issue?

DANIEL:

I'm willing to concede that Hiller does not look like the guy who frustrated the Sharks 7 months ago, But Jiggy hasn't looked this good in almost a year and a half. Can you honestly say, after his astronomical save percentage over his past 5 starts, that he's been what's wrong with our team?

ARTHUR:

Both guys have been great early, but too many of these 3rd period goals are suspect. Against Dallas, Jiggy got caught cheating off the pipe. That's not the kind of goal you give up in the 3rd period of a one-goal game. Granted, the game-winner came off a nearsighted play by Wisniewski, but Jiggy wasn't exactly working damage control afterward. And I would say the problem with Hiller is he looks EXACTLY like the goaltender that frustrated the Sharks 7 months ago. This is who Hiller is, moving too much, guessing too much. On a team of consistent top shelf snipers, it's impressive. Against the rest of the NHL, teams willing to just get the puck on net, Hiller can look silly. Last night, I think he had the loudest feet that have ever played at Xcel, and that includes high school tournaments. He was sliding laterally with his thighs akimbo, taking shots off the inside of his pads. He wasn't tracking the puck at all. He's lucky he didn't give up ten goals.

At the end of the day, our goaltenders aren't giving us their best stuff in the ninth inning. Yes, this is a leaky defense, and yes we're going to give up shots. But that's the job. Neither goaltender is applying for a position in a Lemaire system, here. If you have four goals and a two-goal lead in the third, you need to close. I need to see your best stuff. I need to see you using your positioning, shutting down the angles and moving with feet so quiet you could sneak up on a bat. If we blow a save, so to speak, it should be because a team put together a Herculean effort, an unstoppable play. It should be because they had to, because we had all the high percentage shots and angles covered. It shouldn't be a one-timer off the draw, a shot from the goal line or any of the other shenanigans that have worked on us at the end of these games.

You're right that the answer to this problem is to get rid of the "you win, you're in" system. As long as we have two quarterbacks, we really have none. We need to choose a goaltender, even if it's the wrong choice. We need to put our confidence in one guy and give him the lion's share of playing time. Until then, it's just a parade of performances where the netminder is so desperate to get the next start that he tightens his grip on the game, and it inevitably slips right out of his hands.

Editor's Note: This post will function as our recap thread. Below are the game highlights

His Name Isn't Jonas

Arthur from Anaheim Calling — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:56:47 -0000

DANIEL:

This is Anaheim Calling to the hockey world.

The Ducks surprised just about everyone who seriously follows hockey by blanking the Blackhawks 3-0 on Friday. Chicago came into Anaheim with the league's second best penalty killing unit, but left the building 2 for 5 shorthanded.

J.S. Giguere was key in shutting down the Blackhawks soaring offense. Jiggy's statline for the past 3 games reads as follows: 3 wins, 1.30 GAA, .960 SV%. The Anaheim netminder is starting to look like his old self again, and he isn't giving any indication that Hiller will be logging crease time in the near future. Arthur, there's no denying that Hiller is a great young goaltender; will it be devastating for the organization if he loses the goalie battle and gets shipped off this season?

ARTHUR:

It would be devastating, but I think the devastation began when Francois Allaire left Anaheim. If Allaire was still around, I would say that Hiller could return to dominance or that we could still find another Hiller. But without le guru des gardiens, we were always running the risk of a Peeters and Pogge regime i.e. the end of goaltending as we know it.

And yet, I just don't think Murray can make the call to ship off Hiller, even if Giguere legitimately beats him out for this job. They've reached a point of no return where the best thing that Giguere can do is increase his own trade value, which is exactly what his recent performance does.

Jiggy is also reminding us that his colleague in the crease is an unfinished work in Francois Allaire's portfolio, that the Swiss netminder has yet to snatch the pebble from Allaire's hand. Hiller hasn't learned to trust his positioning on nights when he doesn't have his best stuff, and that is the lesson that carries a goaltender, particularly an Allaire pupil, through the NHL regular season. Don't get me wrong, Hiller's raw skills, his rockstar reflexes and highlight-reel athleticism, are enough to win a playoff series, but in a six month season, he has to find a way to win when those skills are not available to him. Otherwise, teams will catch him guessing, moving and generally struggling to find the plate.

And I know Ducks fans will blame the defense for either goalie's performance this year, but I think that, too, is a lesson for Hiller. He needs to be able to win games without a Norris ballot playing in front of him; Giguere certainly did when he earned this job.

DANIEL:

I don't think losing Hiller would be as bad as my knee-jerk reaction is telling me. In fact, losing Hiller might help Anaheim this year as well as in the future. Hiller is scary good with those reflexes, but you've already said he's an incomplete product of Allaire. Meshing styles is dangerous when you haven't fully mastered at least one. Peeters' might not be able to help HIller without clashing with the foundation that Allaire has laid. If that's the case, it would be wise to stick with the veteran Giguere, who has a strong identity as a net minder, and let Hiller re-create himself on someone else's time and dollar.

Our goalie cupboard isn't overflowing with prospects, but Pogge has experience and Pielmeier had outstanding moments during camp. Maybe Peeters can still bring along one of those prospects. We'd have to keep Giguere past his current contract, but I think he would have the wherewithal to know he's aging and doesn't have the same $6 million value. Goalies are playing a little longer these days, and Giguere might still be a long way from "done." Will losing Hiller be a problem next year? Yes, because no matter what he gets paid it will be less than Giguere, and we'd lose an extraordinarily capable back up.

However, if Hiller becomes available, I don't think there's a better goalie out there on the trading block. Hiller is nothing but upside. Plus, his contract situation is ideal for teams who aren't sure about their goaltending situation this year. So, is there a cap-strapped team, looking to make a splash by announcing three huge new contract extensions, but thinks their Cup dreams could still be sideswiped by their lack of quality goaltending...?

Dear Chicago,

Send us Dustin Byfuglien, Cam Barker and your First Rounder for Jonas Hiller and James Wisniewski. Keep in mind, Blackhawks fans, this rids you of Dustin Byfuglien and frees up money for Toews, Kane and Keith.

That deal would give us three first round picks in the next draft. Yes, we would be taking on 6M in salary for next year without dropping any, but the fact is we have to trade a goalie, either this year, or this summer, and Hiller has more trade value than Giguere.

Cooke, Staal, Guerin fuel a team effort; Pens take down Ducks 5-2

Hooks Orpik — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:26:06 -0000

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

about 1 month ago: Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, right, makes a second period save on a shot by Anaheim Ducks' Petteri Nokelainen (17) of Finland during an NHL hockey game in Pittsburgh Monday, Nov. 16, 2009.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

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Ducks vs Penguins coverage - Anaheim SB Nation team blog Anaheim Calling

Down seven regular players to injury, it has to be a team effort to get by. The Penguins found it tonight as they got contributions from everyone. Even the power-play kicked in with a goal, snapping a streak of weeks without one. Sure the Penguins gave up a short-handed goal, but hey, one step at a time.

Just a minute and a half into the game, Matt Cooke collected a turnover from the Ducks and deposited it past Jean-Sebastien Giguere for the first goal. Then a few minutes later, the power-play finally broke through when Sidney Crosby rifled the puck to Bill Guerin and the old man whipped it from the high slot for a 2-0 lead.

Anaheim would halve the lead when after some lackadaisical Pittsburgh power-play work resulted in Todd Marchant getting a step on the defense and he beat Marc-Andre Fleury to take the score at 2-1 into intermission.

Jordan Staal made a play short-handed that ended up being the game winner. Credit Deryk Engelland who got the puck, kept his head up and made a great pass up to Staal. As has become his habit, Staal beat the defensemen and used his reach to deke the goalie out. 3-1 Pens.

Early in the 3rd period, Martin Skoula scored his first career goal as a Penguin, shooting a puck from the point past the screen of Mike Rupp into the net. Teemu Selanne got a goal late in the game to bring the Ducks within two goals but Cooke put the icing on the cake with an empty netter for a 5-2

Down their top four defensemen (in terms of minutes played) the Penguins needed and got contributions from everyone. Engelland, as mentioned, made a great pass to make the game-winner possible and also played phyiscal with five hits. Nate Guenin looked confident and comfortable in his NHL season debut, also credited with five hits. Mark Eaton carried the load, playing a lot of the power-play in route to a game-high 27:09 of ice-time. Skoula, as mentioned above, got his first goal. Ben Lovejoy got an assist and generally played well.
Jay McKee, the final member of tonight's defensive corps, was his usual shot-blocking self; getting 5 on the night. The last one appeared to sting him, but he still took shifts deep into the 3rd period. Hopefully it wasn't enough to cause an injury,
Guenin and Engelland I think deserve a little more recognition for their efforts. Neither one of them tried to be a guy like Sergei Gonchar or Alex Goligoski -- they played within themselves. But they played very well. Several little plays showed they made good decisions and executed them well all night long.
Keeping on the theme of team contributions: every Penguin who took more than one faceoff was better than 50% in the circle; led by rookie Mark Letestu who won 75% of his eight draws.
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin absolutely unleashed some rockets on the power-play with slapshots. Judging from those, I'd say about all systems are go for those two. Again though, Crosby got the PP assist but Geno was point-less. This win wasn't about them.
It was about guys like Staal and Cooke. 2/3 of the third line went a combined 3 goals, 1 assist and +5, 5 shots on goal, 6 hits.
Several more "ohh man" moments by Chris Bourque, who didn't win anyone to his bandwagon tonight; including missing another wide-open net.
For Anaheim, they just don't look like they have it all together. Given the talent on their roster, and the fact they won the Cup just over 2 years ago, it's hard to believe they're in last place in the entire Western Conference. Then you see some of the turnovers they make in the game, the careless penalties they take and it sets in a little. They have some pieces, but it's not coming together correctly.

The biggest thing to take away from this game was the team effort. Marc-Andre Fleury got 23 of 25 shots, only eluded by a breakaway and late game goal. The patchwork, mainly minor-league level defense held up very well and they all played well to a man. Grinders showed up on the score sheet and skated hard all around.

More than that, they played a style Dan Bylsma had to like; a lot of puck possesion and controlling the pace of the game. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has a saying that goes something like "the standard of expectation hasn't changed" when it comes to replacements pressed into duty due to injuries. That was the case tonight. Obviously it's impossible to replace the skill of guys like Gonchar, Goligoski and Kris Letang on the blueline, but everyone that got a jersey did his job, and did it well. That's all you can ask.

The Penguins now have a two day break before they embark on seven games in 11 days to close out the month of November, starting off with a three game roadie. The games are about to come but hopefully reinforcements will be trickling in. But the standards of expectation will not, and cannot change. Whoever plays has to produce, and they have to perform exactly like they did tonight.

Ducks Gameday -- The Devil's Road Trip

Earl Sleek — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:40:44 -0000

Anaheim Ducks (6-7-2, 14 pts) at New Jersey Devils (11-4-0, 22 pts), 4 pm
More at Anaheim Calling and In Lou We Trust, plus Spade chips in with a Fanpost.

Well, there are signs of life for these Anaheim Ducks, though it's unclear yet how stable it promises to be. The Ducks have won 3 of their last 5 games, though all three victories were at home against injury-depleted opponents, and now get to test that recent optimism against a pretty daunting road trip -- here's how their next four opponents fared at home last season.

2008-09 Home Records

Wed. NJD 28–12–1
Fri. CBJ 25–13–3
Sat. DET 27–9–5
Mon. PIT 25–13–3
Combined 105–47–12

Last season, only ten teams lost 16 games or fewer at home -- the Ducks will visit four of those teams over the next six-day span. Using last year as a basis, an average traveling team would get 3.44 out of a possible 8 standings points on this road trip; do the Ducks have the mettle to do any better?

I've segmented the Ducks' 15-game season into three 5-game sets below, just to show what could be a turnaround. It's definitely a bit deceptive, though -- in Game Ten, for example, the Ducks gave up 5 PPGs to the Maple Leafs; had that game been shifted to the last grouping some of this post's positivity disappears quickly. Plus five games is always a shaky sample size. Nevertheless:

There are some genuine signs of improvement -- shot discrepancy is narrowing noticeably, penalty killing has seemed effective of late, and definitely goals-for have been going in. The first five games the Ducks hung even, despite being outshot wildly. The second five games the Ducks imploded -- the shooting actually improved, but goaltending/defensive results were horrible. The last five games have served as some pattern for success for the Ducks -- after the jump, a look at how some of the individual players' stats changed over each segment.

The analysis here isn't going to be too heavy -- I'm really just looking at points and plus-minus for sets of players for each of the five-game segments. I did also look at shots-on-goal, but didn't end up including it; mostly Anaheim's improvement in shot discrepancy came on the defensive end, it seems.

Also, I've grouped players vaguely according to role -- Getzlaf and Perry always play as a top-line pairing, as do Koivu and Selanne on line two. Lupul and Ryan I've thrown together as the two tagalongs -- they've traded spots a ton among the top two lines. And all other forwards and d-men just get a lump-sum total.

Points-wise, it's easy to see why games 11-15 were the Ducks' most successful -- every grouping enjoyed their best production. But it's the painful games 6-10 that interest me; what ailed the Ducks when they couldn't win? And by eye, the biggest fallback goes to the Line 2 Finns -- their failure to deliver hardly anything in those five games stands out as a big factor in the slump.

The plus-minus portion helps spread that blame a bit -- nobody was really outscoring those five games, but again, the big number points at Teemu and Koivu for that stretch -- their line was giving up goals way too easily.

I'm not going to point fingers at those two, though -- five games is nothing to fume over, and with their performance in the next five games, it's already water under the bridge. But it does stress a bit the need for Anaheim's second line to keep productive -- when they are effective (along with other lines doing as they should), it seems that's a key to Anaheim's success.

Which isn't a new realization by any means -- since the Cup season, the Ducks have been on a hunt for effective second-line scoring. First Andy McDonald struggled to carry the line (without Selanne the semi-retirer), then Doug Weight, then Brendan Morrison, then Andrew Ebbett, and now the task falls on Saku Koivu. In the last five games we've certainly seen Koivu (and Selanne -- he has onus here too) carry his end of the deal, while the top line and depth lines have also delivered -- in a sense, the Ducks have played their formula for success.

At least the last five games, the Getzlaf line has been productive (though he still could be better), the Koivu line has followed up nicely, and the depth forwards have limited their bleeding -- if the Ducks can keep that up for their next five games (consistency? shudder), there may be hope on this road trip. Besides, the Devils, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, and Penguins are all injury-plagued to various degrees; here's hoping the Ducks can keep taking advantage of that.

* * *

I don't know one way or another whether there is some plan to trade J.S. Giguere to Toronto for Vesa Toskala -- I'm never very good at believing in rumors (I'd use "rumours" except this seems to be an OC Register scoop), but an expiring goaltending contract for a bad goalie looks better than a non-expiring non-movable contract for a questionable goalie in my books. Either guy can be Hiller's backup, I suppose, and maybe Toskala's play improves when he hears all the Finnish chatter in the locker room.

The real question, though, is "what else needs to be involved in a trade", and to tell the truth, I'm not quite sure which team needs to chip in more assets to make the fictitious trade work out. As usual, we'll probably need to see an actual trade happen before I can offer too much useful commentary, but if you're bored and want to talk it up, comments are open. Theorize away!

Prediction: The game gets delayed 2 1/2 months midway through the second period when a careless sideline reporter asks Scott Niedermayer whether he'd rather retire or be a backup goaltender. "Hmmmmmm...."

Go Ducks.

Youngman Reports Preliminary Talks For Giguere To Toronto

Arthur from Anaheim Calling — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:46:04 -0000

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THE TELETYPE:
Per a blog post on The OC Register, Randy Youngman is reporting whispers of preliminary trade talks between the Maple Leafs and Ducks regarding Jean-Sebastien Giguere. The post (made at 4:10 PST) included a link to Youngman's story, but the link is no longer good. The story was also available in the paper's printed edition.

In the current cached version of the webpage, Youngman specifies that, according to his sources, talks are in the very early stages, but a deal would take place long before the trade deadline. He speculates that Anaheim would likely have to take Vesa Toskala in return to finalize the trade. (UPDATE 11-9: the page was apparently unavailable due to a website redesign/upgrade. You can now find the article here).

Giguere hopes to be available for the Ducks road trip this week and improve his 0-2-1 record and 3.64 GAA. Toskala has underperformed expectations in Toronto since his arrival and is again off to a poor start (0-2-2 with a 5.13 GAA).

Three Questions for Anaheim Calling

Geoff Detweiler — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:13:41 -0000

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In continuing with the trend to ask our opponents some questions prior to the game, tonight brings us to the future SBN site Anaheim Calling. Currently, those guys are still working on transferring over to SBN, but you can check them out here in the meantime.

It isn't often the Flyers host the Ducks, and in case you didn't hear, the Flyers made a trade with them this offseason.

Check after the jump for Arthur's answers to how Lupul and Sbisa are fitting in, what's going on in their crease, and should JVR be given the Bobby Ryan treatment.

1) Trading Joffrey Lupul and Luca Sbisa was mostly considered an acceptable loss. In Philadelphia, Lupul was constantly looked at as inconsistent and overpaid, despite having immense talent. Sbisa was a little harder to give up since he was so young and showed great talent. How have each performed so far, and what do you expect them to do for the Ducks this year and beyond?

I've joked that going to Philadelphia for a forward is like going to the airport for lunch, and Lupul is currently a $10 Big Mac. I mean, I can't argue with the logic of overpaying playoff performers and free agents, but turning around and successfully trading an overpaid player is some GM kung fu.

In the first few games of the season, Lupul's been passing and blocking shots (last we saw him in the West, the thesaurus listed "passer" and "shot-blocker" as acceptable antonyms for "Lupul"). He's also got some elbows and some toughness, courtesy of the Flyers. Thank you, Broad Street Bullies. But I don't know how long Lupul will decide to play this way. Unfortunately, even if he regresses, we might keep him as a Top Sixer until the last year of his contract. We don't have too many pure scorers in the cupboard nipping at his heels, and Selanne and Koivu will most certainly retire this year. He's kind of got us by the short and curlies unless someone else wants him in a trade. Murray's gotta work on that kung fu.

I've been impressed with Sbisa. Offensively, I've heard comparisons to Oleg Tverdovsky's skating, and I see that. But Anaheim is a system where we'd want him to join the rush, not lead it. He's still working on that. What I love about the kid is his talent below his own hash marks. He plays the man well and can push him wide, and he's tough around the net. For that alone, I see him as a top pairing guy who we'll re-sign before the end of next year.

2) With the emergence of Jonas Hiller last year, the Ducks now have two number 1 goalies. Who will be your goalie this year, will one of them be traded, or is one of them going to be happy as a backup?

I don't think we'll have a Number 1 until after the trade deadline. Carlyle certainly has no intention of offering job security to either of them; he'll be going with the hot hand until one of them collapses or Bob Murray trades one.

And I think Murray WILL trade one of them. He has asset-loss-a-phobia, and Hiller's contract expires this season. But
moving Giguere could be difficult until the trade deadline, when a lot of his money is paid and teams get a better idea of what they have in net. With the cap room we have next year, two marketable goaltenders and an entire Olympics worth of negotiating time, Murray should be busy come March 3rd. Until then, I think HIller and Giguere will have to be happy running the crease by committee.

3) Flyers rookie James van Riemsdyk - out for today's game - has been compared to both Patrick Kane (taken ahead of him) and Bobby Ryan (same selection two years earlier). With van Riemsdyk starting the year in Philadelphia, how important was it for Ryan to get time in the AHL, and what was the main reason (other than the salary cap) that kept him out of the NHL?

If you ask Bobby Ryan, he says a lot of it was conditioning; he wasn't living a professional athlete's lifestyle on a professional athlete's diet. And I'm willing to believe that was a part of it. First, because he flew the Ducks' strength and conditioning coach out to the NHL Awards last year, and second, because his physical game has really picked up. It wouldn't be the first time we asked a guy to lose weight; Francois Beauchemin had to shed some pounds before we'd let him in the lineup.

But I think salary, particularly the bonus, was the root of the problem all along, and Ryan has pointed to that as well. You also can't fault Burke for not giving the kid three full and successful NHL seasons to bargain with at the renewal table. Though, that being said, I still think Ryan is going to try to bleed us dry on this next contract.

A few surprises: Luca Sbisa a top pairing defenseman? I thought highly of him myself, but wow. JSG being available at the trade deadline? At least we know we have options in Philly.

Season Review: Jone S. Hillguere, the two-headed netmonster

Earl Sleek — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:10:22 -0000

No real pun on this one, this is more a movie metaphor. Jet Li and Jackie Chan eventually learned to share the big screen with each other -- can Giguere and Hiller do the same with the Anaheim net?

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Hey, gang. Sorry I've fallen off the post bandwagon for a bit there -- even though preseason schedule has been brutally upon us, it still feels a lot like summer doldrums. Yeah, I know that east coast has been showing me its share of preseason on TV, which does help, but until I get to see a televised Koivu, none of it feels real. Additionally, I've been having a weird combination of experimenting with a new iPhone* while my home computer fights through many issues, which has severely altered my web habits.

* BTW, the comments section here would be a fabulous place to recommend some useful or fun iPhone apps -- I'm in over my head at this point. But I can still spend half a day doing word jumbles.

At any rate, I'm going to finish off my inaugural "Season Review" offseason series with a look at Anaheim's main two netminders, but I should add a word about the overall series. For one, you'll note that it's ironically titled -- mostly these posts have been looks forward, not backwards, and I've included future players like Lupul while excluding past players like Pronger. Somewhat related, you'll note that I haven't done any defenseman-centered posts since Captain Niedermayer three weeks ago -- that's because every other defenseman on the roster is new to the club (less than 42 GP for any of them, including playoffs), and as a whole, I just need to see them play some games before I can pass any proper judgment.

So now we skip ahead to goaltending, which while important, is a battle that I don't think needs to be solved by next week or even by December. We know already from preseason results that we can expect many different things from a Prongerless defense, and I expect that the blueline will continue to evolve the first few weeks of the season (as well as probably the forward lines). The upside to all this dynamic change is that there are two quality netminders to audition during that span, and yes, naysayers, I am counting J.S. Giguere as one of them.

After the jump, a look at both contenders' seasons last year plus a loose discussion of each player's strengths and weaknesses (warning, though: goaltending criticisms are Rudy's specialty, not mine -- I largely criticize goalies through spreadsheets).

LAST SEASON

J.S. Giguere

Now it's perfectly reasonable to associate Giguere's fall to mediocrity last season with the passing of his father in Montreal -- definitely too touchy a subject to contradict, at least. But definitely I remember thinking last year that I started seeing the fall of J.S. right around the time he was put onto the All-Star Game ballot, and thanks to tireless Anaheim robot voters, when he became the frontrunner starter for the west. That proved to be an ironic honor for Giguere -- career-wise he was a worthwhile starter in his native city's event, but at the same time he was playing the worst hockey of that career. The drop is probably best evidenced in looking at save percentage by month:

Giguere's Save Pct by month
Oct 08 -- .903
Nov 08 -- .913
Dec 08 -- .920
Jan 09 -- .858
Feb 09 -- .895
Mar 09 -- .879

Yup. Whatever issue plagued Jiggy, he fell off the map, save-percentage-wise. Giguere was a 2.92 GAA / .911 sv% goalie the last three months of 2008 and a 3.43/.882 sv% goalie the first three months of 2009. His results worsened by 1/2 a goal a game, and by 3 goals per 100 shots -- huge swings by our typical goaltending metrics.

But while it's easy to look past Giguere's chances because of his recent mediocrity and Hiller's recent stardom, it's probably too early to write a eulogy for the guy's career -- there's been very very few goaltenders who have been consistently better than Giguere since the lockout. He's the last goalie not named Bryzgalov who had success behind a Prongerless defense in Anaheim's history, and if the Ducks' defense does turn into a wild west firesale, I almost have to think that Giguere is the favorite to reassume the #1 role in Anaheim. Because assuming Giguere returns to some pre-funk form, at his best Giguere is a guy who swallows pucks -- Hiller at his best is a guy who blocks many back into play. If Anaheim can't control rebounds as well as they could with Pronger (something I'd call "very likely"), then Hiller's style becomes less useful, but we'll get to that below.

One vote of confidence for Giguere comes from Anaheim's preseason results, I suppose. The only two games the Ducks won in regulation this preseason were the only two games that Giguere played 60 minutes. Even that has caveats, though -- both wins featured last-minute 6-on-5 goals that brought the opponents within one; Giguere likes to make every game a nailbiter.

But he's got experience. He's got an excellent pre-2009 track record. He's got a Smythe and a Cup and an undeserved ASG start. And he's got $6M counting against the cap this season and next with a no-movement clause; from an accounting and trade-likelihood** perspective it'd be much better for the Ducks if Giguere could re-dominate the nets.

** One argument against moving Giguere is this: the two most successful postseasons the Ducks have enjoyed have exactly coincided with J.S. Giguere's last two contract years. Jiggy is only one season removed from his next contract year -- dare the Ducks fuck with karma?

Jonas Hiller

It's fair to say that when Giguere faltered last season, Hiller then stepped in and began dominating the nets. But I think Hiller played excellently all last year -- fluctuations in his results were more about the team in front of him, I suspect. When the Ducks played serious hockey, Hiller was instrumental in their wins. And let's not fuck around -- Hiller beat the San Jose Sharks and pushed Detroit to 7. Getzlaf and pals had enormous playoffs for sure, but the Ducks collectively were outshot 532 to 349 over the 13 games of the playoffs, yet the Ducks outscored their opponents 35 to 32!

It's tough to nail down exactly where Jonas Hiller 2009 ranks among the goaltending performances that Anaheim fans have enjoyed this decade -- as I mentioned in the playoffs, every three years a goalie makes his debut and owns a postseason, and Hiller's eye-popping .943 playoff save percentage was exactly that -- even a step up from his regular season .919.

But it's also important to remember the Ducks' survival strategy employed throughout many stretches in last year's playoffs -- weathering the storm until Getzlaf's next shift. And while opponents threw great volumes of shots at Hiller's net, the Ducks dedicated themselves to securing Hiller's loose pucks -- the Swissman is an excellent puckstopper but a frequent rebound machine. And that was really where Pronger and Beauchemin both played key roles -- they were both instrumental in the battle outside Hiller's crease.

There's no reason to think that Hiller won't remain excellent at his #1 skill -- stopping the first shot with amazing consistency -- and if Giguere continues his decline, Hiller will see plenty of them. But if and when the new blueline has less control of rebounds (especially shorthanded), how will Hiller's numbers get affected by loose puck battles? Will he have to adjust his "first shot" game to hold more pucks, and can he make that adjustment easily?

I should stop there -- really I'm talking in hypotheticals and there's nothing that I know about Jonas Hiller that suggests he'll be anything less than a monster in net this year. And unlike Giguere, Hiller actually is on a contract year this year -- while it definitely will make trouble heading for next summer, I think it's a really good thing. Hiller needs an audition behind a thinner defense before the Ducks should commit any big money/years to the guy, and this situation should be perfect in determining his long-term value. He'll definitely take a bite of salary-cap-space next summer, quite possibly with another team, but that's down the road. For now, it's just time to see how dominant he really can be.

* * *

Looking forward

I guess I could end this post with a simple 2-option poll, but I don't know -- my perspective on the situation changes quite frequently, and until I really get to see this blueline play (Row B on Saturday, bitches!), it's tough for me to even nail down a prediction. And as usual, Coach Carlyle is zero help -- that guy is more likely to tell me his ATM PIN than who his starting goalie will be.

But even though it's difficult to predict who will ultimately seize the day, it's a great overall situation -- both guys have lots to prove, there's plenty of time to get it right, and the front office gets to react next summer based on better knowledge of each player's abilities. Feel free to offer your predictions or hopes in the comments -- who will be the Ducks #1 by mid-season? -- and feel free to change your mind as many times as you like. For now, though, it's time to drop some pucks and see how this new-Ducks team looks. Can't fucking wait -- standings points start getting awarded tomorrow, if you can believe it. I'd better get started on a gameday post.

Go Ducks.

Sleek lets his mouth do the talking for once

Earl Sleek — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:01:04 -0000

Tonight at 7 pm Pacific, the kind folks at the HOCKEENIGHT podcast have invited your pal Earl to join in this week's podcast, presumably to talk up the Ducks and the rest of the Pacific Division for Hawks fans. I believe it's a setup where you can listen in live and then use the chat window to toss your two cents into the conversation -- interactive listening at its finest! Of course, I can't promise anything stellar from my end of things -- I'm usually an idiot on the phone -- but that may be the compelling reason to listen in. Feel free to throw any topics you'd like me to talk about in the comments here -- we'll see what sort of sway I have in the natural course of conversation. That radio show should theoretically last a little more than an hour (if I'm not kicked off halfway through), and afterwards you can jump over and listen to the already-in-progress internet-radio coverage of tonight's preseason Sharks-Ducks game.

It's like a whole new Golden Age of Radio or something, except this time it lasts one night only.

* * *

Actually, tuning in midway through games seems the way to go lately for Anaheim fans.

Preseason results so far have been underwhelming for Ducks fans (namely: me) looking for signs of the vaunted "new identity" Ducks -- presumably the team's offensive additions had set the team up as one that could potentially score the game's first goal, but it hasn't happened yet in four preseason bouts. Granted, we're talking about half-rosters on back-to-back-to-back-to-back nights here, but in three of four games the Ducks have fallen behind 3-0 before the end of the second period -- not ideal at all. In fact, not even a change of identity -- the Ducks did this "shit the bed" opening tactic last season as well (over a stretch of 18 games, the Ducks allowed the game's first goal in 16 of them), and I wasn't too enthused about it then, either.

In four preseason first periods thus far, they are being outshot by a collective margin of 66 - 21, and outscored by a margin of 5 - 0. In first periods, the Ducks have put themselves shorthanded 10 times to the opponents' 5, and three of the four games have opened with an opponent power play marker. After the first period, things level out, mostly, but it's not really that comforting to know that the Ducks can play fifty-fifty hockey in games in which they are already trailing.

Still, deep breaths -- it's goddamn preseason, and the Ducks are 2-2, despite the fact that opponents have taken fake standings points in every contest. Plus, it's not all bad -- collectively, goaltending has been very good; here's the small-sample-size preseason breakdown thus far:

Goalie	GP	SA	GA	GAA	SvPct
Timo Pielmeier	2	63	3	2.57	.952
Justin Pogge	1	20	1	1.98	.950
J.P. Levasseur	1	11	1	2.28	.909
Jonas Hiller	2	44	4	2.68	.909
J.S. Giguere	1	16	2	4.04	.875

Get it together, Giguere. Get it together, first period Ducks. And get it together, Sleek -- you're on the damn radio tonight.

Go Ducks.

[Edit 9 pm -- here's the audio:]

SB Nation - Jean-Sebastien Giguere

Sitting Duck

The Rumor Mill: Toskala Trade Still A Possibility?

You Can't Ride Two Horses . . .

His Name Isn't Jonas

Cooke, Staal, Guerin fuel a team effort; Pens take down Ducks 5-2

Ducks Gameday -- The Devil's Road Trip

***Youngman Reports Preliminary Talks For Giguere To Toronto***

Three Questions for Anaheim Calling

Season Review: Jone S. Hillguere, the two-headed netmonster

Sleek lets his mouth do the talking for once

Youngman Reports Preliminary Talks For Giguere To Toronto