Time may not be on Bruce Boudreau’s side. His Anaheim Ducks are now 1-6-2 and are coming off of their most crushing defeat to date – a 4-3 loss to the Dallas Stars in which they held a 3-0 lead after the first period.
It could get worse before it gets better. The Ducks have the St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators, two of the top teams in the Western Conference to date, as their next two games on the schedule. Captain Ryan Getzlaf had an appendectomy that left him unavailable Tuesday and could keep him sidelined for the next 11 days.
Meanwhile, the team have scored just nine goals in their nine games, 33 percent of which came in Tuesday night’s loss to Dallas.
If you use 97 points as the benchmark for getting into the playoffs as it was last season, the Ducks would have to go 42-22-9 the rest of the way this season. They're certainly capable of that with the roster they have, but there has been no sign of the team that so many thought the Ducks could be coming into the season. Urgency has to set in at some point.
On the bench Tuesday night in Dallas, Boudreau looked beaten. The cameras ominously zoomed in on the Ducks bench boss in the closing minutes, focusing on the faraway look in his eyes that expressed bewilderment more than anger.
this makes me really sad, but i feel it is my duty to post it. pic.twitter.com/9hOtvKiiQU
— Stephanie (@myregularface) October 28, 2015
After the game, an exasperated Boudreau had to go through the customary postgame interview with the local rightsholder. He hadn’t the energy to feign any sort of confidence. The sweat on his brow and the redness in his cheeks showed a coach that looked like he already knew his fate.
“Well you can call it what you want,” he told Fox Sports’ Julie Stewart-Binks (via Sportsnet). “It’s demoralizing. We have a 3-0 lead. We should not lose the game like that.”
Eventually Boudreau ran out of answers.
“I don’t know. I’m sort of at a loss right now,” he said.
I think most of us are at a loss when it comes to the Ducks.
The nine goals they’ve scored as a group while being shut out five times to start the season is beyond shocking. The fact that Frederik Andersen is carrying a .931 save percentage through six starts and has zero wins to show for it, or that Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry have combined for zero goals and three assists, or that Mike Santorelli is the team’s leading scorer with three points, or that they have one of the league's top penalty kills, or that they remain a plus-possession team and still can't string together wins continues to baffle.
This is a team that was one win away from the Stanley Cup Final last year. They’ve won the Pacific Division in each of the last three seasons.
Yes, there were changes to the roster. Losing Francois Beauchemin, a veteran and one of the team’s leaders, and replacing him with Kevin Bieksa hasn’t been working out all that well. Free agent Chris Stewart has zero points, while other newbies Shawn Horcoff and Carl Hagelin each have two – like seemingly half the roster does. But the top of their lineup features two of the elite offensive players of the last decade, a second line that used to be able to score just as easily as they could shut opposing lines down, and a mobile defensive corps full of youth and skill. It hasn't mattered a bit.
The Ducks are shooting at 3.6 percent as a team right now. That’s not going to continue, but it has to change soon and it might be too late for Boudreau when it does.
The problem right now is, who is really at fault for this? How do they fix it? And is Bruce Boudreau the man to fix it if anyone can?
There have long been reports and rumors of a strained relationship between Boudreau and GM Bob Murray. The Ducks owners reportedly are fans of Boudreau’s, though. That said, the team built in an easy replacement when they hired Paul MacLean, the 2012-13 Jack Adams Award winner, as one of Boudreau’s assistants last summer.
However, it has also been suggested that assistant coach Trent Yawney could be the guy to get the job if Boudreau is ousted. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman believes he might actually be the top choice, as he told Sportsnet 960 radio Wednesday. He is a one-time coach of the Chicago Blackhawks and has vast experience at the AHL level as well. Former Ducks coach Randy Carlyle's name has even come up.
It's never a good sign when the options for replacement are suddenly lining up.
The problem with being a coach in the NHL is that you can be done in by small samples. Someone in the front office decides to hit the panic button and it’s all over because they can’t fire players. Everything is amplified at the start of the season.
Todd Richards found this out just last week, but he was done in by poor goaltending more than anything else when he was let go in Columbus. Boudreau is leading a team with multiple stars who have suddenly forgotten to score. No one could have seen what happened to the Blue Jackets and Ducks this year coming.
Here’s the other thing about Boudreau: In each full season he has been a head coach, his teams have won the division title. Six times he has coached a team for 82 games and all six were tops in their division. He even won a divisional title after taking over the team with 61 games to go in his first season as the Washington Capitals coach. The last time Boudreau was fired, his Capitals were 12-9-1, second in the former Southeast Division. He might have had a shot to turn it around.
Boudreau's teams have famously flamed out in the playoffs and that will remain in the back of anyone's mind when it comes to the head coach. That shortens the leash for sure, but under Boudreau, the Ducks have taken one step forward in each of the seasons he's been there. Suddenly and shockingly the trend has been halted. It's hard to imagine it's because of something Boudreau himself did, but there's no easy explanation.
When looking at the larger body of work, Boudreau deserves a chance to turn this thing around. But he’s running out of time to do that and so are the Ducks. At some point, something’s got to give and that usually ends with the coach in the GM’s crosshairs.
