Ben Shelley: Ducks split back-to-back to begin season with loss to Vegas, win over Canes

LaCombe is much better than I thought - bigger, smoother and great positioning-

Minty is dynamite -

Seeing them both lead the rush time and again is sweet-

The 2nd line is outstanding- McTavish/ RS & Frankie looking very strong -

The 3rd line will be better when Leo is in and Rico goes to down.

Who drops when AK comes back is the real question - AK and Rico on the 3rd line that would be very strong -

Z / Leo / TT
Frankie / McTavish/ RS
Rico / Bo / AK
4th - Big Boss Ross / Sammy / Leason -

That works big time -

C'mon Ben! The shot disadvantage was totally score-centric in the Canes game. Anaheim was outshooting them until they had to kill the 4-minute minor. Besides, most of the Canes shots were from the perimeter. The Ducks will take that!
I thought the Ducks looked pretty good against Vegas but they look primed early to repeat as Cup champions.
Back to the Canes game, I was really impressed with the play of Jackson LaCombe on Mintyukov's goal. He made a great play on his backhand to keep the puck in the zone, and then another brilliant backhand pass to Minty to hit the open net. 2 rookie defensemen in on the rush! So far, I'm loving the Cronin era!

LaCombe is much better than I thought - bigger, smoother and great positioning-

Minty is dynamite -

Seeing them both lead the rush time and again is sweet-

The 2nd line is outstanding- McTavish/ RS & Frankie looking very strong -

The 3rd line will be better when Leo is in and Rico goes to down.

Who drops when AK comes back is the real question - AK and Rico on the 3rd line that would be very strong -

Z / Leo / TT
Frankie / McTavish/ RS
Rico / Bo / AK
4th - Big Boss Ross / Sammy / Leason -

That works big time -
- dozerD10

I thought LaCombe looked really comfortable in the few games he played last year, and that was with the incompetent Eakins as his coach. I was cautiously optimistic about him this year. So far so good!

So far so good for the kids. LaCombe looks smooth with good feet and hands. Mintyukov looks like he might be special. The league will adjust and expose weaknesses and these kids will make mistakes, but given the talent level of these guys, the Ducks will live with that.

I thought one of the keys in the Carolina game was the line scrum incident at the end of the 2nd period. The team lost Gudas for 14 minutes which hurt them in the 3rd, but seeing Zegras in the middle of that pile trying to get a headlock on someone tells me the Ducks are buying into the play tough mindset, which is a bigger deal than any single game performance.

Yeah. This year's Ducks team is looking good so far. Mostly relying on speed and aggressive play. The penalties they have taken so far are just a byproduct of being aggressive. But they haven't been cheap penalties. The last 4 years under Eakins they played very passive tring to play zone coverage instead of man to man. But under Eakins they still took penalties. Just alot of ticky tack penalties. So penalty kill is going to be crucial to wins if they want to stay with this aggressive style.
Gibby still looks a little nervous. Gonna see tonight if he settles down a little. The Ducks are covering the zone in front of him better. So he should be seeing the puck better.
And one good or bad thing that's happening . The Ducks roster is deeper. Depending on how you look a it, but the depth has been a interesting to watch for me. Like Zegras and Drysdale in the past few seasons have never had other players pushing for there spots in the lineup. Now Zegras is getting pushed to the wing and Drysdale is gonna have to fight for his minutes with other prospects trying to get more playing time for themselves. Very interesting dynamic happening there. Old players say competition is good. But this younger generation of players don't seem as use too it as previous generations. Gotta watch and see how that plays out.