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Dead Ducks? Anaheim has its back to the wall in Game 6Posted: Saturday June 07, 2003 12:29 PMUpdated: Saturday June 07, 2003 5:38 PM
It's finally here. To Mighty Ducks coach Mike Babcock, whose endless supply of hockey-lifer slang and motivational platitudes makes him sound like the unholy offspring of Toe Blake and Tony Robbins, every game is the most important game of the season. The first game of the playoffs? Most important one of the season. A January match against the Panthers? If you try hard enough, you can get him to pronounce it the most important game of the year. The Mighty Ducks will face elimination for the first time this postseason on Saturday, making Game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals the most important of all the most-important games they've played. It follows what was perhaps their worst effort of the playoffs, the 6-3 thrashing the Devils handed them in Game 5. The Ducks were lost and confused at the Meadowlands on Thursday. New Jersey outworked, outskated and outhit them. (Babcock even paid the Devils his highest compliment, calling them "greasy.") Anaheim's defense, which normally does a superb job of clearing bodies and pucks away from the area in front of Jean-Sebastien Giguere's net, was nonexistent. The Devils skated onto Giguere's doorstep at will, and loose pucks lingered in the slot like impolite party guests. The game was a train wreck for the Ducks, and it set babcock to thinking about other vehicular mishaps he's had. "I went to the lake once and I can remember coming around the corner too fast and running into a deer," he said on Friday. "That's exactly what we looked like three times in New Jersey, like that deer when I was about to hit it." Giguere didn't help matters by playing like he had received a blow to the head just before taking the ice. He seemed to have trouble following the puck and on several occasions had no idea where a rebound or bounce off the boards had ended up. Instead of covering of shots he normally handles, he scattered rebounds like an old woman breaking off chunks of bread for pigeons. Fortunately for the Ducks, they have experience rebounding from such horror shows: After being completely outclassed in Games 1 and 2 they returned to Anaheim and won two straight. Clearly Giguere has to be sharper in Game 6, and his defense must get back to building their usual cocoon around his crease. Giguere, who got so much credit for his public plea for more passion from his teammates before Game 3, turned on them a bit after Game 5. After playing his worst game of the postseason, the first words out of his mouth to the media were, "We weren’t very good defensively tonight." So the Ducks must once again simplify their approach and stick to their methodical style. Playing at home will help, espcially since New Jersey has been awful (4-6) on the road in the playoffs. The Ducks also need the home-ice advantage to spark Paul Kariya, who has been a shadow in this series. Kariya got his first point of the series in Game 5, an assist. Anaheim's highest-paid player has looked cautious and timid and hasn't had an impact on any game. Granted, the Devils are the league's top defensive team. But as one of the few players with electrifying offensive skills in this series Kariya must find a way to create scoring chances. At this point, trailing 3-2 in the series, the Ducks winning the Stanley Cup would be unexpected. An Anaheim win without any goals from Kariya is unthinkable. "When you have a guy everyone expects to produce you just wait for him to explode," Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur said. "We can't forget about him." Kariya must remind the hockey world he's in uniform for this series. Otherwise, this most-important game might be the Ducks' last. Sports Illustrated staff writer Stephen Cannella covers the NHL for the magazine and will contribute frequently to SI.com throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs. |
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