It seemed like the Anaheim Ducks intention from the drop of the puck last night against the Vancouver Canucks, was to run them out of the rink. It didn’t quite matter how they accomplished that or how many penalties it took. That might have worked if the Canucks power play hadn’t produced, but by the end of the first period it was 2-0 on power play goals by Daniel Sedin and Mason Raymond.
The other stat was – Ducks – four penalties and Canucks – one, and that one was for fighting in which Aaron Volpatti accounted himself admirably against Ducks’ Matt Beleskey .
The second period contained more of the same dumb penalties with Anaheim racking up four more and the Canucks one. Volpatti, who only played 8:02, scored his first of the season and pretty well sealed the fate of the Ducks, because the 3-0 lead was going to be insurmountable the way their undisciplined play was taking place.
Anaheim, not a team to take this lying down, entered into a series of fights in the third period with the game out of reach, to prove the point that – “stupid is as stupid does”. They came away with four more penalties, two majors and two minors.
Looked like Ducks Corey Perry was not happy with a check from Alex Edler along the boards and was determined to exact his revenge on any Canuck. Keith Ballard was his choice for the dance and Beleskey decided he would take on Kevin Bieksa. One day Perry will choose the wrong partner and someone will take him down a notch but for now Ballard was on the end of the receiving.
What? Did the Ducks expect the Canucks not to show up just because they were leading. 
Out of these penalties came another power play goal by Zack Kassian and for good measures another even strength goal from Mason Raymond. So let me see, five goals in total, three of which came from the power play, a total of 12 penalties to the Ducks and five for the Canucks. Maybe Forrest Gump was on to something with his quote in the movie.
Ice Bits – Not lost in all this was the shut-out by Cory Schneider who attained for his 7-3 loss to these same Ducks. He improved his GAA to 2.78 and save percentage to .913
Alex Edler had another solid game and is looking very confident both on the power play and five-on-five. Mason Raymond seems to be off and running with three goals in four games and had a lot of jump in his step. Zack Kassian’s goal last night was his third in three games .
The Sedins had their best game of the season and raised their play to the caliber that we have all come to expect. Daniel had a goal and an assist with Henrik contributing two assists.
Chris Tanev led the team in +/- with a plus two, and Alex Burrows with five shots-on-goal. Jason Garrison is still looking for his first point of the season, which is puzzling with all the power play opportunities he had last night. Last but not least, Jordan Schroeder got his first point of his NHL career with an assist on Raymond’s second goal.
Next up the always tough Sharks in a Sunday early start.
Photo Credits – AP, Getty Images, Google Images and Yahoo Sports!
Video Credits – YouTube
Stats Credits – http://www.hockeydb.com, http://www.nhl.com/ice/statshome.htm, http://capgeek.com, http://canucks.nhl.com.
Quote Credits – The Vancouver Sun and Province
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