Ducks not buying into Jets’ lack of playoff experience

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This article was published 16/04/2015 (3898 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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ANAHEIM, Calif. — Anaheim Ducks coach Bruce Bourdreau has dug into the season’s series with the Winnipeg Jets to come up with his top-line combination for this Stanley Cup playoff serires.

Patrick Maroon will skate with centre Ryan Getzlaf and right-winger Corey Perry on the Ducks’ top line.

“I’ve gone back to seeing how we played Winnipeg this year and Patrick was on the line when we played Winnipeg in all three games and we had success so I didn’t have any reason to think he wouldn’t be the guy on that line when we started,” Bourdreau said after this morning’s skate.

“Everything we do is for Game 1.”

The Ducks won all three games against the Jets during the regular season and Maroon had three assists in the three games.

“I think it’s a good opportunity for me to step up my game. I know I didn’t have a good regular season,” Maroon said this morning. He had nine goals and 34 points in 71 games.

“But I’m familiar with those faces and I’m excited to get going.”

Maroon has no illusions that the Jets will be an easy opponent.

“Obviously we all know they’re big and strong, their defencemen,” he said. “They kind of remind me of L.A. They have a couple of guys who can move the puck and we had better eliminate them every chance we can, just for them getting back up the ice.

“It’s fun hockey. Hitting everywhere and getting pucks in and down low, on both sides of the ice. They’re a fast team and I think myself that we’re a pretty fast team.”

“It’s hard hockey, like playing with a pork chop out there.”

Boudreau said today that he hopes his team’s playoff experience will direct them in the right way emotionally.

“There’s a difference between being emotionally ready and controlled emotion,” he said. “Everybody wants to do really good in the playoffs but sometimes you overdo it and a little bit of experience helps that.”

The coach is also prepared for all contingencies, by the sounds of this morning’s interview.

“We’ve come from behind in all the series,” he said of his time as Ducks’ coach. “It’s something not to panic. Hopefully we don’t get behind but you never know. If it does happen, we’re an experienced enough group to realize we keep going and hope for the right things to happen.”

As for his opposition’s lack of experience, Boudreau wasn’t buying it, even though this is the first time the Jets have reached the post-season since the 2011 relocation.

“Those guys, it’s a media-built thing that they haven’t been in there,” Boudreau said. “I mean, it’s a fact but at the same time I think their players are taking it one game at a time and they’re very well coached.

“I don’t think they’re saying, ‘Oh, my God, it’s our first playoff, ever.’ (Ondrej) Pavelec has won the Calder Cup as a goalie and he’s been through the pressure situations and (Andrew) Ladd has won two Stanley Cups so they’re not new to this. The franchise is new but the players, a lot of them, aren’t new to it.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca