Its official, the Ducks are an embarrassment. There were times this season where the team has shown hope and the fans believed it was time for the Ducks magic to turn around but guess what, not happening. It has been excuse after excuse but here we are.
First it was, oh look at how many of our key players have been hurt, can’t expect the young guys to come up and do it all. We got healthy(ish) and still were getting blown out of the water. Next, oh it’s been a hard season the guys need to get to the bye week and get away from the ice for a while and come back refreshed and ready to go. Wrong, we had all this time off and came back at have been embarrassed 2 games since break. The team is showing its true colors. We are slow, we are old, we do not play with any passion (how about a scrap to get the boys going, when was the last time that happened), we do not have a coach or GM who appears to have any control over the situation and we look like literal lost ducks when we play.
Now that this mess of a season is getting more national attention, reporters have pointed out what we fans have known the whole time. When this team was winning games in the beginning of the season it was due to John Gibson bailing out his team night after night after night. Guess what, you can only do that for so long. Not only is his workload very heavy to begin with, seeing close too, if not 40 shots a game but since Miller has gotten hurt Gibson has seen almost all of the ice time during this skid of the season.
It’s clear that we have no faith in Johnson as a backup, not like he has had much to work with so we put Gibson out there night after night and it has caught up to him. He has been pulled in 3 straight starts, after giving up goals on constant shots from the slot, odd man rushes and breakaways. The team HAS to help him out. He is one of the best goalies in the NHL and what the team is doing to him cannot be good for his confidence and it is showing. The body language is bad, and he looks like he’s just over it and with good reason.
You would think that when your franchise goalie is getting the you know what kicked out of him every night, his team is not doing anything to help him, and you have to have your veteran captain TELL YOUR COACH TO PULL THE GOALIE because the coach wants to leave him in there when clearly the team or Gibson didn’t have it, you just may think that upper management would DO SOMETHING to make this a better situation. When I say do something, I do not mean trade Cogs and Aberg and get Del Zotto and have Holzer back in the lineup, and these little stupid moves are not something that is going to help a team that has lost 16 of its last 18 games. You have your respected and veteran Captain on the record multiple times saying how it’s the hardest thing he’s gone through in his career and looks like he is at a loss for words and yet we do nothing.
How about those off season moves going into this year, Sustr, Schenn, Gibbons, Rowney, Street, Rodin, and Coreau. Making a huge impact if you ask me, that’s what happens when you are known as “Bargin Bob”, refusing to spend more to make your team better.
Listen, if we are going to rebuild then do it. Make it clear and do it, but please if you’re going to rebuild the team, start with management… and I’m looking at you Henry and Susan.
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