Let me begin by begging your forgiveness for that awful pun, but let’s face facts: it was only a matter of time before that word got put to good use on this blog.  The answer to that question in the context of the word “quacked” meaning “screwed” is not quite so simple.

Perhaps it’s too presumptuous and untoward to write off the Ducks’ season with a month remaining on the schedule.  The numbers don’t paint the prettiest picture, but the simple fact is that the team is but a stone’s throw away from the playoffs – with just enough time to make up lost ground.

To be blunt, even counting the improved play of the team since January, the Ducks are still facing an uphill battle to qualify for the postseason.  The principal obstacle in that battle remains the glut of teams vying for a dearth of playoff positions.  The Ducks sit near the bottom of the conference, but are only five points away from the eighth-seeded Detroit Red Wings.  Just eight points separate the Ducks from the Nashville Predators in the seventh slot, and it appears the grasp on those bottom two seeds – no matter who is holding them on any given day – is tenuous at best, especially in the fiercely competitive Western Conference.

The chasm at the top of the conference is much more apparent.  After the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks, there is a 10 point tumble to the third place (based on points) Phoenix Coyotes.  Disregarding the fact that neither the Ducks nor any other team has a legitimate chance to catch the top two, Anaheim has in its way the other three teams in its division: Phoenix, the Los Angeles Kings, and the Dallas Stars.  Leapfrogging at least Dallas seems inevitable if the Ducks have aspirations of playing hockey into the latter stages of April and beyond, and the race to catch the Coyotes and Kings is not yet lost.

Luckily, this is not entirely unfamiliar territory for the team.  The Ducks got off to a similarly sluggish start in 2005-06 and rebounded well enough to make a charge to the Western Conference finals.  The key then was consistency and the ability to ride momentum long enough to maintain a level of play where the team was competitive on a nightly basis, no matter the opponent.  The similarities continue when examining the makeup of that team: one reliant more on its offensive game, moving the puck fast and effectively.  The problem that dogged the team early this season was a persistent denial of its makeup as an iconoclast of Brian Burke’s former rugged, defense-first teams – a problem because the personnel required to employ such a style was not present (Chris Pronger having left the biggest void).

There also exists a certain parallelism to last year’s team that general manager Bob Murray re-tooled at the trade deadline.  Murray has once again banked on some last minute acquisitions (notably Lubomir Visnovsky) to provide a spark and hopefully propel the team into the playoffs.  Credit must be given to coach Randy Carlyle for that unexpected success, as he was able to successfully integrate the new players into a system that had the entire team firing on all cylinders.

Unfortunately for the Ducks and Carlyle, that was last year, and some of the criticism for this year’s lackluster start should fall on him.  His steadfast refusal to make any major changes in his game plan and his unfaltering loyalty to underperforming players makes the team an easy target too frequently.  There is little doubt that the team’s early struggles brought the goaltending situation to a head that culminated in the departure of the longest-tenured Ducks player, Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

The silver lining for the team now showing through is the markedly improved play of its new number one goaltender, Jonas Hiller.  In the absence of Giguere (and the long shadow cast by the whole situation), he has returned to the level of play that carried the team to within a game of the third round last season.  His strong showing at the Olympics for Switzerland vindicated Murray’s decision and undoubtedly opened a few eyes around the league.

But familiar territory or not, with a half-dozen other teams in contention, memories of past glory are not enough.  The Red Wings are finally getting healthy, and the Flames (currently in ninth) are perhaps the only team to have shifted more personnel than the Ducks.  In Nashville, the Predators continue to win, and with Olympians Shea Weber and Ryan Suter on defense, they will not likely fall by the wayside.

And so it falls on Anaheim to make its own luck.  Chief in that quest will be getting the most out of all players on a consistent basis.  The offense – with Teemu Selanne finally regaining his health and plenty of Olympic gold, silver and bronze to go around – should not have a hard time putting pucks in the net as long as Carlyle does not get impatient and butcher any chemistry he finds.  In net, Hiller’s task will be crucial but unextraordinary: maintain the level of play he has shown since January, and do it consistently.  It is on defense where the biggest challenge lies.  Given the recent restructuring, it is certainly understandable if things do not mesh immediately.  If the team hopes to go anywhere, however, the new players will have to achieve a level of stability and dependability that is characteristic of playoff teams.

It seems that the imperative is clear: mesh now or pay later.

Yesterday, I spoke about some great memories of the Ducks’ 2003 second round triumph over the Dallas Stars.  True, these moments aren’t great for all involved, but irrespective of their emotional impact they are the stuff of which the hockey annals are made.  It was after watching the clips that I began to wax nostalgic about the Ducks’ Disney days, and the realization of the holiday season dawned on me (the holidays are nothing if not a time to share stories).

Accordingly, I have decided to share my brief and extemporaneous recollection of that magical Stanley Cup spring, beginning today with the series — specifically game one — win over the Stars.

It had been an extraordinary playoff season, and in this case the definition of the word had been bifurcated into decidedly opposite extremes of the emotional spectrum.  Extraordinary that the Ducks (nee Mighty Ducks, as they still were at the time) had swept the Red Wings, defending Cup champions.  More extraordinary still that in doing so, Jean-Sebastien Giguere — my favorite Duck dating back to his major junior days in Halifax — had shut down a high-octane offense by stopping pucks at a record pace.

Extraordinarily upsetting, too, that the Colorado Avalanche had managed to forfeit a 3-1 series lead against the Minnesota Wild and find themselves eliminated early in (what would prove to be) Patrick Roy’s final season — Roy being my all-time favorite goaltender.  It is a nearly inexplicable phenomenon to those who aren’t fans of sport to hope that one of your two favorite teams is eliminated ahead of schedule, making the choice of allegiance one beyond control.  Thankfully, due to whatever mixture of complacency, arrogance and fatigue that had finished the Avalanche, the decision to throw my full support behind the Ducks had been made for me.  [Note: The Ducks and Avs did meet in the 2006 playoffs, and it was Anaheim that did me the favor by swiftly and mercilessly destroying Colorado.]

And so it was, the second round began and I was certain that the Ducks had been the fortuitous recipients of beginner’s luck (insofar as Giguere could carry them), and that Dallas would quickly dash any delirious dreams of third round play.  At the time, I was away from home on a school trip.  Through some stroke of good fortune, the hotel room had a television and my friends were willing to put aside their allegiances and watch the Ducks game with me.  Having tuned in well before midnight, we had no idea how many consecutive hours of hockey we were settling in to watch.

Fast forward to 3AM, a wakeup call looming in less than four hours (you didn’t think school trips were for sleeping in, did you?).  The room of four, only three of us hockey fans, were beginning to wonder aloud if the game would ever end; being in the Atlantic timezone certainly wasn’t helping our perception of the game’s astronomical duration.  It was then, after the fourth overtime period had ended, that common sense won over my friend and he called it quits.  Ironically, this friend was as much a hockey fan as I, but he was seemingly giving in to the sensibilities of sleep.  By this point, my sports-allergic friend had made a point of outlasting the game as a means of masochistic endurance.  To the best of my recollective ability, I quote him: “Right now I just want to stay up and see how long this thing goes.”  Point taken.

On the television screen, the remaining crowd in Dallas was doing its best to maintain what can only be called the sorriest wave I’ve ever seen at a sporting event.  It was, however, difficult to fault the audience for its lack of energy at that point, because the play on the ice had grown sloppy and fatigued as well.

I can’t remember the exact time — every time I tell the story, I seem to settle on 3:30AM as the acceptable marking point — but it finally happened.  It happened so quickly I almost missed it.  Petr Sykora coasted into the slot, took a pass and fired a quick shot past Marty Turco into the Dallas goal.  The event seemed to catch everybody (awake) by surprise, no one more than Turco.  His expression looked crestfallen, to say the least.  In the hotel room I raised my arms triumphantly, exhausted.

In total, I think I got about three hours of restless sleep that night.  Breakfast was an unholy mixture of donuts and coffee, foods I am not wont to eat the other 364 mornings of the year.  The rest of the series now plays out as a slideshow of scattered moments in my head — Giguere stopping Mike Modano with his skate blade, and Modano’s ensuing bewilderment; the cathartic celebration after the final seconds ticked off the clock in game six, the Ducks’ players looking as though they had been waiting the whole time to exhale — and it is wonderful, but nowhere near as affecting on my fan psyche as that first game.

Rarely do I find it fitting to use the word I am about to write.  Truthfully, I rarely find it remotely appropriate as someone who endeavors to make a career of writing to think of using this word.  But asked to sum up the entire experience of that playoff run, with the quintuple-overtime victory standing tall as the most vivid in the collection of those memories, I can think of only one word to use.

Epic.

Dear Santa,

Is it too late for a trade-in – even if only for a store credit – at the favorite hockey team shop?  Sure, it’s been a good decade or so with my Ducks (you even brought me that silver cup I asked for two years ago), but now I want the latest and greatest.  And Santa, to be honest, my old team just isn’t cutting it anymore.

When I first got my new team, you were probably surprised I liked it.  My boys in burgundy – the Colorado Avalanche – were perennial winners, so what did I want with an eggplant-clad bunch of outcasts and misfits who had a hard enough time just making the playoffs?  I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with Wildwing Flashblade – the coolest, most badass mascot in hockey (incidentally, Santa, you never did bring me the Wildwing mask I asked you for).  In spite of the undeniable awe an anthropomorphic cartoon mallard commands, none of my friends wanted to share my team.

None of that mattered in 2003 though, because the team was too busy winning to care what people thought of them.  I stopped caring what people thought, too, but I still wasn’t brave enough to flash my gang colors around town (I’m sure the eggplant would have been fine, but the jade was a little sketchy).  I didn’t get my silver cup that year, but I never really asked for it, so it was a decidedly good time for my team nonetheless.

When I started complaining to you about my Ducks after the lockout, you listened.  You brought me lots of wins for Christmas, and a snazzy new outfit the very next year.  Even that impossible silver dream, complete with visions of ticker tape parades, wasn’t too much and you brought it all to me, Santa.

The last few years have been tougher, though.  I had to part ways with a few of my favorite things – the hardest part was giving up my Chris Pronger with its two gigantic actuating elbows.  I have not dared to ask for another silver cup, preferring instead to keep my hopes low and not be disappointed.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore because my team isn’t even meeting my new expectations.  It looks like there will be no Christmas in Anaheim this year, and what is a diehard fan to do?

So please, Santa, reach into that big bag of gifts you have and see if there’s something in there for me.  A few wins, a glimmer of hope, or some medicated band-aids for my friend Teemu.  Right now, my team needs all the help it can get.

Wait a minute; did I just say my team?

I guess it still is my team.  Forget what I said before about wanting a new one, Santa.  It may not be the biggest or toughest team around, and it may not be the fastest or highest-scoring – but it has brought me more than my deserved share of happy moments and bragging rights.

That’s all I want, Santa.  More happy moments, less tears, and maybe world peace while you’re at it.

Love,
Patrick

P.S. Jonas says he doesn’t believe in you, but I decided to ask for him anyway.  Santa, could you please bring him some super glue for his goalie pads?  Oh, and Giggy said something about wanting a bigger chest protector, but I’m not sure how much room you have.