Ducks look to pressure Blackhawks' defensemen
ANAHEIM, Calif. — We haven't exactly reached war-of-words status in the Western Conference finals series.
But it's certainly trending in that direction.
Anaheim went so far as to issue some not-so-veiled warnings Monday to coach Joel Quenneville that it's open season on Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya if the Hawks continue to rely mostly on their top four defensemen.
“That's something we've talked about,” Corey Perry said as the teams prepared for Game 2 on Tuesday. “We just have to keep pushing and getting pucks in deep, making them turn. It's not going to happen overnight (fatigue), but as the series goes on, it definitely takes its toll.”
The scoresheet after the Ducks' 4-1 victory said a lot in terms of playing time as the Ducks' six defensemen played about 16-23 minutes while the Hawks' top four played 20-28 minutes and their bottom two combined for 16 minutes.
“We're rolling our ‘D' and it gets everybody involved in the game,” Anaheim's Cam Fowler said. “I think as this series goes along it's going to help us out a lot. We feel fresh and we have all guys who can play in all situations.”
It appears Quenneville will make a change for Game 2, inserting Kyle Cumiskey for the ineffective David Rundblad, but the question is will the minutes for the Hawks' Big Four remain the same?
“Every game's different,” Quenneville said. “We'll see how the ice time is delegated by performance and by how things are going. We know that they're a physical team — that's part of it. We want to make sure we don't get distracted (and go somewhere we don't want) to go to be successful.”
Nashville and especially Minnesota brought almost no physical play into their series with the Hawks. The Wild looked like it wouldn't hit anybody if challenged to a pillow fight. Issue that challenge to the Ducks and they'd show up with rocks and knives embedded in their cases.
Anaheim dished out 44 hits in Game 1, including 25 in the first period.
“It's tough to play any team if (they're) going to completely finish 45-50 hits a night,” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “It's not just those top four defensemen — it's whoever we play. That's our goal, is to finish checks, finish checks, make it tough on them.”
But being physical is one thing. Being able to skate with the high-end skill that Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler and the rest of the Ducks bring is what makes this an extremely tough matchup for the Hawks.
“You can kind of key in on those top four guys that they play,” Fowler said. “You'd like to make things as difficult as you can on them, especially physically. If they're going to be playing that many minutes you want to make it as difficult as you can on them.”
Fowler was careful to praise Keith, Hjalmarsson, Oduya and Seabrook by saying they don't seem to get tired very often.
“Keith is one of the best at that,” Fowler said. “He always seems to have jump no matter how many minutes he's playing. You definitely have to respect them and know that they're used to playing those big minutes, but you try to invest on them physically.”
Patrick Kane, who had his seven-game points streak snapped Sunday, believes the Ducks' overaggressive play might lead to some opportunities where he or his teammates can slip into some open ice.
As far as the big hits or trash talk? Kane says the Hawks aren't about to get pulled into that kind of gamesmanship.
“We try not to focus on that too much,” he said. “If you start worrying about the way they're playing against you or what they're trying to say to you or what message they're trying to get across, it only works negatively on you.
“I think we have enough experience in here to know how to react to those situations.”
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