Weather the Ducks will be buyers or sellers at the deadline this year is probably even beyond Ducks General Manager Bob Murray at this point. However, Wisniewski could be dealt no matter what. Last summer he signed a one year contract that has been giving him $2,75 million this season. But according to reports he was demanding over $3 million at the time and it seemed like he was heading towards arbitration. Instead he agreed to a lower salary but only signed a one year deal with the idea of showing what he was capable of and that he should be earning more.

But considering his play this year, $2,75 million seems like a fair amount of money. Yet rumours are that he’s looking for a contract that will give him somewhere around $3,0-3,5 million when he’s becoming a Restricted Free Agent again this summer.

For $3,0 or $3,1 million I would say there’s a possibility Bob Murray will agree to sign him even though a deal like that would be stretching it. If Wisniewski is heading back to Chicago, the 23-year old defenseman Cam Barker is likely to go the other way. Obviously, other teams could be interested in Wisniewski’s services. But either way, if the rumours regarding Wisniewski’s demands this upcoming summer are true, I fully expect him to be gone prior to the trade deadline or free agency.

More trades?
Other than the Wisniewski rumour there hasn’t been any much reliable one’s. However, Anaheim has only six defensemen on the roster and lot’s of forward depth. Forwards Petteri Nokelainen and Evgeny Artyukhin has been scratched a while now while GM Murray is likely making some phone calls regarding them and a few other bubble players. Bredan Mikkelson is probably the defenseman the team is looking to bring up from the AHL. The Ducks are also looking to bring rookie forward Dan Sexton back from the minors, so we should see a couple of players gone in a not too distant future.

“Obviously I would have liked to stay in Anaheim. When I re-signed here three years ago, the situation was a little different. Saying that, even before they re-signed Jonas, I could see they were leaning towards him. I’m 32 years old and I feel like there is still some hockey left in me. I wanted to try and get a chance to be a No. 1 goalie somewhere. I felt like in Anaheim it wasn’t going to happen. I feel like now I can get that chance again.” – Giguere said during a phone press conference.

A lot of Ducks fans are disappointed and a lot of Leafs fans thinks Ducks GM Bob Murray must be stupid taking on Jason Blake’s and Vesa Toskala’s contracts. But I’m telling you, this was the way things had to go down from a Ducks perspective.

Goaltender Vesa Toskala’s contract expires this summer while Jason Blake is $2 million cheaper than Giguere. Something that will help the Ducks going forward with the negotiations with young forward Bobby Ryan.

In addition, the Ducks assigned rookie right winger Dan Sexton to the Manitoba Moose of the AHL. Even though he has 18 points (9+9) in 28 games this season.

”It’s a tough one. We have a few too many forwards. Dan Sexton will be back and I told him so. He’s going to be in the minors at this point, but he will return.” – Ducks GM Bob Murray said during a press conference.

Goaltender Justin Pogge was also recalled from the AHL and will backup Jonas Hiller in tonight’s game against Florida. The reason? Vesa Toskala will have to sort out a few things such as visa moving from Canada to California. Something that isn’t the case with 36 year old winger Jason Blake who is a U.S. citizen. Blake is expected to be in the Ducks line up for tonight’s game.

As a long time Ducks fan, it’s hard to see J.S. Giguere having to go this way. He obviously isn’t the same goaltender he used to be and I’m happy the Ducks got rid of his contract. Still, he was pretty much the face of the franchise during many of his 10 years in Anaheim. “Jiggy’s” jersey could very well be in the rafters of Honda Center the day he retires from hockey.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So many memories…

“Scotty and I have been talking and he’s going to retire an Anaheim Duck. And that’s the way it’s going to be unless he tells me different. I have an agreement with Scotty and it’s my word”, Ducks general manager Bob Murray told the LA Times yesterday.

Now, if the Ducks can keep up the way they’ve been playing lately and maybe add a key player at the deadline, I can understand why keeping Niedermayer is the way to go. Sure, he’s been a very important piece of the Anaheim Ducks since the lockout. Being the captain and being a huge part of the cup run in ’07. But unless we are talking about Teemu Selanne, I’m not in favour of Murray making promises like these.

Scotty has won it all and is a lock to make the Hockey Hall of Fame when he retires. But if the Ducks can’t contend seriously for the cup this year, there’s little reason to keep the upcoming Unrestricted Free Agent in my opinion. Obviously, the Ducks could gain some real nice assets for a player like Niedermayer come trade deadline. And after all, despite his success, he’s only been a Duck for about four and a half years. Now the team could lose him either through free agency or retirement this summer.

However, this should still be taken with a small grain of salt. But obviously, Niedermayer isn’t the first player a GM should go out and make promises about in public. But let’s say this is true, then Niedermayer holds his own destiny:

“We’ve talked about this. I see him staying here. Who knows, he might play next year”, Murray also told the LA Times.

If he isn’t traded, the Ducks fans can only hope for him to come back for at least another year. Hopefully taking a pay cut.

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Another small rumour floating around is the Ducks making a deal with the Flyers. Apparently, 1090 Sports Radio has reported that Philadelphia might have interested in net minder Jean-Sebastien Giguere in exchange for young forward Jeff Carter.

Now, I didn’t listen to this myself. But we don’t have a lot of rumours in Anaheim or even in California for that matter. So I thought I should at least mention it. Obviously, this deal can never go down as long as there aren’t more pieces involved. Jeff Carter has a lot more value at this point. Not to mention the Flyers current depth at the goalie position. I’ll do an Eklund and say this is an “ELV1” at this point. And that’s only due to “1″ being the lowest on the rate scale.

The Anaheim Ducks had impressively seven prospects participating in this years World Junior Championships in Regina and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The tournament which ended only about ten hours ago with team USA winning it after a thrilling match up against Canada. A game which had overtime deciding the outcome.

A couple of Ducks prospects became champs as USA had both defenseman Jake Gardiner and left winger Kyle Palmieri on the team. I got to see them in two games in the tournament, in the final against Canada and in the semi-final against Sweden.

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Gardiner, a first round pick in 2008, impressed me with his safe defensive play. At the time he was drafted, he was known as a pure offensive talent just coming off a transition to the defensive position after playing forward his whole career prior to that. The kid can really fly and I still see him as an offensive minded defenseman. However, he received a more defensive minded role on this USA team, and I think he handled it really well from what I saw of him.

Palmieri, a first round pick in 2009, have been putting up some decent numbers in the tournament. I think he looked decent in both the semi-final and the final. He showed some talent against Sweden but I expected more work ethic from him, and I think he picked that up in the final.

On team Canada, the Ducks had forward Brandon McMillan, a third round pick in 2008. I only saw him in the final were he did a great job on the penalty kill and from what I’ve heard, and based on his point production, he had a great tournament.

On team Finland, a Ducks defenseman prospect participated. Sami Vatanen, a fourth round pick in 2009, has been looking great in the highest Finnish league this year and was quite impressive in this tournament as well. My hopes are this kid develops into a new Lubomir Visnovsky. He’s good in both ends of the ice, but could bulk up some in order to be effective in the defensive zone in the NHL as well. He obviously has lots of talent, look at these two goals against the Czech Republic:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Center Radoslav Illo, a fifth round pick in 2009, represented Slovakia in the tournament. I never got to see him play, but he was among the most productive players on the Slovakian team. He’s supposed to have a huge slap shot and was often given time on the point while on the power play.

Goaltender Igor Bobkov, a third round pick in 2009, got to stand between the pipes for Russia. He looked good overall but had a couple of downs. He had one huge game against Finland though where he had a shutout on 40+ shots coming at him.

The most talented Ducks prospect perhaps, Luca Sbisa, only got to play three games before suffering a rib injury. Sbisa was also selected to the Swiss Olympic Team, but now there’s a risk he might miss the tournament. Only playing three games, I didn’t get to see him. He played both against Canada and USA so him not getting a point in three games isn’t a big deal whatsoever. He played eight games with the Ducks this season going scoreless before getting assigned to Lethbridge of the WHL.

Stats summary:

Jake Gardiner, defenseman, team USA:
7 games, 3 points (0+3), 4 penalty minutes

Kyle Palmieri, left winger, team USA:
7 games, 9 points (1+8), 4 penalty minutes

Brandon McMillan, left winger, team Canada:
6 games, 8 points (4+4), 0 penalty minutes

Sami Vatanen, defenseman, team Finland:
6 games, 5 points (2+3), 0 penalty minutes

Radoslav Illo, center, team Slovakia:
6 games, 5 points (2+3), 6 penalty minutes

Igor Bobkov, goaltender, team Russia:
6 games, 2,45 goals against average, .93% saving percentage

Luca Sbisa, defenseman, team Switzerland:
3 games, 0 points, 0 penalty minutes

The Ducks have been getting more and more consistent, but the last game against Phoenix was awful even considering that the Ducks played back to back. Anaheim were great against the Colorado Avalanche the night before and won a game they deserved to win. Craig Anderson, the Avalanche netminder, stood on his head until pretty much the last six minutes and was the only reason Colorado stood a chance.

Some blame Ducks coach Randy Carlyle for starting Jonas Hiller in goal despite his awful record in back to back games. I think I would have done the same thing if I was coaching. Hiller has been good over a short stretch here and usually owns the Coyotes. It didn’t work out this time, plain and simple.

The defense for the Anaheim Ducks are looking more consistent as well, but obviously, the same thing can’t be said about the offense. However, that’s not a surprise with Teemu Selanne and Joffrey Lupul out of the line up.

Once those two are back, the Ducks should be able to make the playoffs if they can keep up the good effort on the power play and the penalty kill. The importance on special teams in the “new” NHL is huge. While that certainly is a hackneyed fact, it’s certainly true.

It was the same thing last year. I put together a Ducks expert panel on SvenskaFans.com for a midseason report back then. And just like now, the Ducks were out of the playoffs at this point last year.

The panel which except me and my college on “SF”, Rickard Fransson, also included the director of publications & new Media for the Anaheim Ducks and Honda Center Adam Brady, Dan Wood from the Ducks Radio Network and Ducks fans Richard Label and Ken Vezina.

At that point we all agreed that the inconstancy and the bad defensive effort was of biggest concern. With other words, this year is just the same old story, meaning that if the problems were solved then they can be solved now.

Whatever Randy Carlyle did then he must do now even without Chris Pronger, Francois Beauchemin, Samuel Pahlsson, Travis Moen and Rob Niedermayer on the team.

“We don’t know if that’s 100 percent (sure), but it’s a probability at this point”, Ducks coach Randy Carlyle told The OC Register this morning.

No time table on Lupul’s injury has been determined. But obviously, to come back and regain form from such a surgery, if it turns out necessary, will take time. This is a tough setback for the Anaheim Ducks at this point of the season. While they are currently dead last in the Western Conference, a playoff spot is still within range.

For certain, the Ducks could really benefit from having a scorer like Joffrey Lupul right now, who also has developed a quite good defensive game this year. In the absence of Teemu Selanne (broken hand), Lupul’s importance should become even more noticeable.

Tomorrow night the Ducks will play the Vancouver Canucks at the General Motors Place. Lupul isn’t the only one expected to miss the game. Defensive minded forward Mike Brown has missed the last couple of practises with an upper body injury. Russian winger Evgeny Artyukhin is likely to replace the former Canuck in tomorrow’s line up.

My take on the Ducks line up tomorrow:

Kyle Calder – Ryan Getzlaf – Corey Perry
Bobby Ryan – Saku Koivu – Dan Sexton
Matt Beleskey – Todd Marchant – Petteri Nokelainen
Evgeny Artyukhin – Kyle Chipchura – George Parros

Brett Festerling – Scott Niedermayer
Sheldon Brookbank – Ryan Whitney
James Wisniewski – Nick Boynton

Jonas Hiller (Jean-Sebastien Giguere)

Andy Elwho?
As this is my first post as a Ducks author here on HockeyIndependent, I thought I should make a short presentation of myself.

I’m a 19 year old guy, born and raised in Pitea, a small city in northern Sweden. My first name is actually Andreas, but I’ve come to realize that it’s easier for North Americans to refer to me as Andy.

Since I was 15, I’m a NHL writer on SvenskaFans.com, the biggest European Sports Community on the Internet. Currently, I’m also a journalism student in Kalix, a couple of hours north of Pitea. Despite my age and my location, the Anaheim Ducks have been my favourite team about as long as I can remember. However, it wasn’t until after the lockout in 2005 when Internet had grown bigger, that I became a true die hard Ducks fan.

I’ve also done some more private blogging, although I’m not sure what will happen with andyducks.blogspot.com now that I’ve become a writer here. HockeyIndependent is the first serious English written website I’m representing. Due to the circumstances, I think my English is at a fairly high level currently. Meanwhile, I’m still young and I’m dedicated to improve. Moving to the United States is something I could see myself doing at some point. Therefore, all small things I can do to improve on my English is only to my satisfaction.

I’d appreciate any questions or feedback regarding my work.

Contact:
elvstrand.svenskafans@gmail.com

I hope you’ll enjoy reading!