Ducks cancel practice, talk about playing ‘the hard way’
Dallas Eakins and the Ducks’ coaching staff brought the players to Honda Center for a meeting Thursday. After a 5-1 loss Wednesday to the Kings in their fourth game in six nights, and with no break in the schedule until next week, a day off the ice was in order.
“Your first inclination is to have a hard practice, really get on habits, really hammer down,” Eakins said. “But that’s not the smart move. We’ve played a lot of hockey with some travel. We just needed to have a little chat and get every one of these guys out of here for some rest.”
Eakins liked the way the Ducks played through the first two periods Wednesday, but then they began to cheat in the third, cutting corners in order to find a way to rally from a 3-1 deficit. The game got out
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of hand quickly and they never recovered.
It was a radical departure for a team that had picked up its play in recent games and ended a 0-6-3 skid with overtime victories Saturday over the Colorado Avalanche in Denver and Monday against the Kings at Honda Center. The Ducks also managed to climb out of last in the West Division.
“Our frustration is, even though we went through a real string of losses, not once in any of those games did our guys fade away,” Eakins said. “In every one of those games, they were battling. There’s excuses and there’s reasons, and I’m certainly not using it as an excuse.
“But one of the reasons may have been that they were mentally pooched and tired. The reality is, every team is going through that and you’ve got to find a way to battle through it. I did want to commend them on how hard they’ve worked even though we hadn’t gotten the results.
“That can be a feel-good thing, but we still have to hate to lose. You have to hate to lose. That’s just the way this is. You’ve got to take it home with you a little bit, too, and then get rid of it by the time you get back to the rink (the next day).”
So, what went so haywire in the final period Wednesday and why was Eakins so concerned?
“The thing I don’t want to creep into our game is what crept into our game (Wednesday) night,” he said. “We started cheating for offense. We started looking for the easy way. Every goal we’ve scored, every little bit of success, little steps forward ... has come from the hard way.”
Eakins declined to share all of what was said during the meeting, but he did say, “We were building good habits, but for whatever reason (Wednesday) night, that last part of the game, they went out the window. We just can’t have it. You’ve got to be willing to do things the hard way.”
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