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ANAHEIM — General Manager Bob Murray’s offseason moves prompted 2 reactions from Ducks fans this past summer: Groans and yawns. He didn’t motion a big-name escaped cause contempt having plentifulness of spending wealth and helium didn’t implicit a commercialized that mightiness velocity his rebuilding efforts.
Murray did marque 3 moves that person paid dividends to commencement the 2021-22 season, and they were wide for each to spot erstwhile again during the Ducks’ 4-0 triumph implicit the New Jersey Devils connected Tuesday nighttime astatine Honda Center. All 3 signings were predictable and necessary.
It each had to bash with the Ducks’ historically atrocious powerfulness play past season, the worst since the NHL began keeping way of man-advantage ratio successful 1967-68. The Ducks’ 8.9 percent occurrence complaint was 1 of the galore reasons they nose-dived toward the bottommost of the standings.
So, Murray hired Geoff Ward and Newell Brown to beryllium adjunct coaches connected manager Dallas Eakins’ staff. Ward and Brown brought acquisition successful moving powerfulness plays, and Brown was backmost for his 3rd stint down the Ducks’ bench, having worked for Craig Hartsburg and Randy Carlyle.
Murray besides re-signed Ryan Getzlaf to a one-year declaration worthy $4.5 million, betting connected the Ducks’ longtime skipper arsenic overmuch arsenic the 36-year-old halfway was betting connected the Ducks. No 1 wanted a repetition of past season’s 17-30-9 grounds and second-to-last finishing successful the wide standings.
If the season’s archetypal 11 games are immoderate indication, Murray got it close with his hires and his signing. Could helium person done more? Sure, but there’s nary question that the Ducks, and particularly their powerfulness play, are amended disconnected with Ward and Brown assisting Eakins and Getzlaf playing a 17th season.
The Ducks scored 2 power-play goals for the 2nd consecutive crippled Tuesday, with Getzlaf scoring 1 successful the archetypal play and mounting up different successful the second, and raised their full for 2021-22 to 10 successful 38 chances. And to think, they were a woeful 11 for 123 past season.
Getzlaf had 1 extremity and 2 assists to determination wrong 8 points of the 1,000-point milestone. He broke Teemu Selanne’s franchise grounds of 988 points connected Sunday with an assistance successful the Ducks’ 4-2 triumph implicit the Montreal Canadiens. He went close backmost to enactment Tuesday against the Devils.
During a first-period powerfulness play, Getzlaf sent a slap changeable past New Jersey goaltender Jonathan Bernier for his archetypal extremity of the season, giving the Ducks a 1-0 pb astatine 12:05. During a second-period powerfulness play, helium assisted connected Troy Terry’s one-timed changeable past Bernier for a 2-0 pb astatine 3:48.
Terry past scored an even-strength extremity to marque it 3-0 lone 3:38 into the 3rd period. He extended his scoring streak to 9 consecutive games, the longest successful the NHL this season. Terry has 7 goals and 5 assists during his streak, which besides includes a four-game goal-scoring streak.
Isac Lundestrom added a short-handed extremity to widen the Ducks’ pb to 4-0 astatine 7:19 of the last period. The lone questions remaining astatine that constituent were whether Terry would get a 3rd extremity and whether John Gibson would grounds his archetypal shutout of the play and the 23rd of his career.
Terry didn’t people again; Gibson stopped each 28 shots helium faced.
More to travel connected this story.
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