Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle

You don't have a little goaltender chat with Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle — not this time of year. It's like trying to pry loose his deepest, darkest secret which is, of course, who he will start in goal Friday night against Nashville in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series at Honda Center. So who will it be? "The guy who gives us the best chance to win," Carlyle said. "The guy who is the healthiest. … Ultimately, the decision is mine. " Here is where the gyrations begin.

Toronto may be the self-proclaimed Center of the Hockey Universe, but Anaheim has become the cradle of NHL coaches and executives, a position solidified last week when a former general manager of the Ducks fired a former Ducks coach and hired another former Ducks coach to salvage a sorry season. Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke , who put the final touches on the Ducks' 2007 Stanley Cup team, on Friday fired Ron Wilson — the Ducks' inaugural coach — and brought in Randy Carlyle , who coached Burke's Ducks to the Cup but was dismissed in late November during a season-sabotaging slump.

As a coach you sometimes weigh what you see and what your gut tells you and make risky decisions. Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle made several such moves Sunday when he shifted a struggling Bobby Ryan to the second line and benched Erik Christensen and George Parros in favor of two forwards who hadn't played in a while. Petteri Nokelainen last played for the Ducks two weeks ago. Josh Green last played in the NHL in the 2006-07 season.

Who stays and who goes? Easy questions if you are in charge of a fantasy hockey club, but not quite so simple if you are an executive in charge of a team with playoff hopes starting to look like a fantasy. These questions only intensified after a dizzying collapse by the Ducks at Honda Center. It featured a rapid-fire chain reaction of errors as the Blackhawks scored four third-period goals in their 6-5 victory on Friday afternoon, rallying from a 4-2 deficit. The Ducks went into deep-freeze mode, and it had nothing to do with the building temperature.

Ducks tonight VS. SAN JOSE When: 7. Where: Honda Center. On the air: TV: Channel 56; Radio: 830 Records: Ducks 0-0-0, Sharks 0-1-0. Record vs. Sharks (2008-09): 2-4-0. Update: The Ducks open the season against the Sharks, who finished with more points than any other team in the NHL last season only to be upset by the Ducks in the first round of the playoffs. That history figures to "add a little spice," said Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer.

Jamie Langenbrunner and the New Jersey Devils keep finding ways to win despite an injury list that grows longer every day. Langenbrunner and Zach Parise each had a goal and an assist, and Martin Brodeur made 31 saves as the Devils extended their winning streak to six games with a 3-1 victory over the Ducks on Wednesday night. Brian Rolston was the latest casualty, sitting out the game because of an undisclosed injury or illness. He joined Rob Niedermayer (upper body), Johnny Oduya (lower body)

Radim Vrbata helped the Phoenix Coyotes cap a successful October with another late win. Vrbata scored in the shootout to give the Coyotes a 3-2 win against the Ducks on Saturday night. Phoenix goalie Ilya Bryzgalov stopped Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne in the tiebreaker to preserve the victory. The Coyotes improved to 4-0 when the game is tied after regulation, including two shootout wins. They also earned their ninth win in October, tying a franchise record.

Frustrated by an offensive slump, the Dallas Stars could have easily veered from their game plan. Instead, the Stars stayed the course and got a couple of fortunate bounces along the way. James Neal and Steve Ott scored 71 seconds apart early in the third and Dallas beat the Ducks, 3-1, Thursday night, handing the Ducks their seventh straight road loss. Anaheim right winger Teemu Selanne broke a bone in his left hand and didn't play in the third. He will have his hand examined by a specialist after he returns to California.

The painstaking progress made by the Ducks in training camp and the first three weeks of the season seemed to vanish in about an Anaheim minute. OK, to be generous, make that about three Anaheim minutes. They played a train wreck of three-plus minutes against Phoenix on Sunday, giving up three goals in that second-period span and couldn't quite catch up in the third period as the Coyotes hung on, 5-4, at Honda Center. Ryan Getzlaf scored twice, his first two of the season, and the other Ducks goals came from defensemen Lubomir Visnovsky and Kurtis Foster, who was making his debut with Anaheim.

Who stays and who goes? Easy questions if you are in charge of a fantasy hockey club, but not quite so simple if you are an executive in charge of a team with playoff hopes starting to look like a fantasy. These questions only intensified after a dizzying collapse by the Ducks at Honda Center. It featured a rapid-fire chain reaction of errors as the Blackhawks scored four third-period goals in their 6-5 victory on Friday afternoon, rallying from a 4-2 deficit. The Ducks went into deep-freeze mode, and it had nothing to do with the building temperature.

It was, perhaps, the most telling indignity of this prolonged Ducks dive, a slump rapidly closing in on the one-month mark. The Ducks, pressing for the tying goal against Detroit, had a six-on-four advantage late in Sunday's game on the power play and with goalie Jonas Hiller pulled. Red Wings defenseman Brad Stuart, deep in his own zone, channeled his inner pool player and managed to bank the puck off the right boards and into the empty net. Just call him side-pocket Stuart.

Assist, Aaron Rome. The Ducks may have been fairly exhaustive in their team meeting the other day to discuss ways out of the current abyss. But it's doubtful they could have imagined the scenario behind their 4-3 win over Vancouver on Friday night at Honda Center. First, they watched the Canucks' Rome take an incredibly lame five-minute major for elbowing Ducks rookie Devante Smith-Pelly, next they scored twice on the following power play and built a four-goal lead by the end of two periods.

The kids, cutting against conventional — if not accepted — wisdom, were not the biggest problem for the Ducks in their latest loss, a long list of defeats. Rookies and other newcomers to the Ducks' system weren't the ones getting outworked on goals, often beaten to the puck at key junctures in the Nashville Predators' 4-2 victory Wednesday night at Honda Center. The Ducks' winless streak stands at six games, and Anaheim has won once in its last 10 outings. It became a fight against the record and discouragement when Nashville's first two shots went in the net. "It's hard.

Reporting from Chicago — The Ducks' seven-game, 13-day trip began with talk and ended with action. In between came some stellar play, most notably from goaltender Jonas Hiller and Teemu Selanne; some familiar power-play issues and one hard-earned point when Blackhawks center Patrick Kane beat Hiller to finish a 3-2 shootout thriller in front of 21,247 at the United Center. "We played much better in this game than we did the previous two," Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said after his 500th career game behind the bench.

The painstaking progress made by the Ducks in training camp and the first three weeks of the season seemed to vanish in about an Anaheim minute. OK, to be generous, make that about three Anaheim minutes. They played a train wreck of three-plus minutes against Phoenix on Sunday, giving up three goals in that second-period span and couldn't quite catch up in the third period as the Coyotes hung on, 5-4, at Honda Center. Ryan Getzlaf scored twice, his first two of the season, and the other Ducks goals came from defensemen Lubomir Visnovsky and Kurtis Foster, who was making his debut with Anaheim.

Frantic finishes could not erase the damage of slow starts. The Ducks might have been fine, say, except for that middling matter of the first two minutes of a period. They endured the rockiest of starts, giving up a goal in the first 13 seconds, and fell behind by two in the opening 7:40. Guess that's what happens when you have three days between games in the NHL. Red-hot Dallas applied the pressure when necessary, scored early in the third period and held on to defeat the Ducks, 3-1, on Friday night at Honda Center.

So much for Marc-Andre Bergeron being a spare part. Bergeron was acquired by the Ducks from the New York Islanders at the Feb. 27 trade deadline to largely serve as insurance down the stretch and in the playoffs. Who would have known that the Ducks would already have to cash in their policy? Because of Chris Pronger's eight-game suspension that began Saturday against St. Louis, Bergeron figures to have an important role in the rest of the regular season as the Ducks try to secure home ice in the first round and overtake San Jose for the Pacific Division title.

Scott Niedermayer looked up from his thank-you list after finishing the several-page roll of seemingly everyone he'd known during his 18-season NHL career. He stared forward, looking at his wife, Lisa, and his four sons, seated in the front row of the news conference Tuesday where the Ducks' captain and future Hall of Famer announced his retirement. He started thanking them, but his tears wouldn't let the words come easily: "No matter how things were going …you made my life richer …it was always great seeing you when I got home from the road."

They applauded long and hard during the glitzy pregame introductions for reigning league most valuable player Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Bobby Ryan and, of course, the age-defying Teemu Selanne. One of them would surely score, right? Or failing that, serve as a skillful playmaker during the Ducks' opener at Honda Center. None of that happened, and it didn't matter. Not with Jonas Hiller tending goal for the Ducks on Friday night. Hiller recorded his 12th career shutout, facing 31 shots in the Ducks' 1-0 win against the San Jose Sharks.

Reporting from Nashville Teemu Selanne, the Ducks' Mr. Happy and a guy who savors putting the puck in the net as if he invented the technique, has never seemed so disgusted with a two-goal game. "It was wasted," Selanne said. Mincing words was not in Selanne's repertoire Sunday. Choosing them with harshness was after the Nashville Predators' 4-3 victory at Bridgestone Arena that left the Ducks down, 2-1, in the Stanley Cup playoff series. The abridged version: The Ducks stunk, and almost won. The Predators thoroughly dominated, and left wiping their brows.