Ben Shelley: Ducks’ skid reaches seven games with loss to Canucks

Unreal… I couldn’t even believe it .. play the best game of the losing streak, down 2 d men and what does Gibson do… decides it’s a good time to go straight moron mode -

Can we please play Leo sometime soon.. damn.

I found last night's game aginst Vancouver very interesting. The strategy that the Canucks deployed was very strange. They played defensively the first two periods. Constantly surrounding Dempko and blocking the Ducks from getting to the net or crease. Then after the Ducks wore themselves out, they blitzed the Ducks in the third period. Basically the Canucks set a trap and the Ducks got caught. Of course it was risky. If the Ducks score two or three goals in the first and second that game goes way different. But I admire the risky move Rick Tochett and his Coaches made. They plan was worthy of Willy Coyote setting a trap for the Road runner. And yeah it could have blown up in their faces like a Acme Dynamite kit. But it didn't. And that was funny to me.

And the risk came with a good reward. The Canucks basically got two points from a division opponent for minimal effort. They did just enough to win the game. Very efficient. Expelling to much energy just to get a loss was a bad out come for the Ducks. But Cronin and his staff need to watch out for these kind of games. And losing 7 games in a row in really bitter. But let's just hope the Players and Coaches are learning from the mistakes.

You know. Sometimes there is bad luck or good luck on the Ice. Analitics just calls this phenomena Puck Luck. It's basically just random stiff that happens on the ice that can't be controlled or represented by a number. L
Things like bad ice conditions, equipment malfunctions, bad penalties calls from refs, injuries, bad bounces from. The boards, ect. These kind of things basically throw a monkey wrench into any Analitics chart that says who should win and who should lose.

Now I admit these things happen. It's what some call the hockey gods. Sometimes they smile on you. Sometimes you feel there wrath. Both here's where I differ in opinion from the Analitics Blogers:
#1: Not everything that Analitics calls bad luck should be called bad luck. Basically anything the the Analitics community can't figure out is just called bad luck. Like pucks that are tipped ln, rebounds, blocked shots, extreme defensive systems. Basically anything they can't figure out is just bad luck. And it's B.S. Just because you don't know what it is doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

#2: Usages of puck luck. Bad luck isn't viable In the real world of hockey. It makes no sense to me why people who seem smart would rely on thier luck to change to fix their problems. Things don't change the real world without some force or actions to change them.

#3: Job demands. If coaches or Gm's quote puck luck it goes against there job description or job requirements. There jobs in hockey is to build and maintain a winning team. That's means finding ways to succeed. And while bad luck is a hindrance to those goals, bad luck can be mitigated or planned for during a course of a season. It just takes foresight and and planning to leave yourself a little bit of wiggle room to deal with bad luck. A team should expect bad luck and have contingency plans In place to deal with them.

#4: It's just a excuse. Analitics and those who use them in hockey have kind of gotten use to using bad luck as a escape goat for their problems. It's such a weasely way of doing things. Tring to blame a random thing in life for your problems is so lame. Be better Analitics people.