Weekly Update: Dec 21 – Turnaround Time?

The Gulls get a much needed Crack injection in the form of veteran Adam Cracknell, but will it be enough?

Sorry it has been a longer-than-week wait! It’s the silly season and also Summer down here so I have been a tad occupied with Summer activities.

News and Observations:

Miss You Marty

Much like the Ducks’ woeful start of the season – the Gulls’ inability to climb out of the cellar and string together some wins could be blamed on a variety of factors.

• Injuries. This is most noticeably Jack Kopacka, who had shown promise early, Jacob Megna going down for a period of a few weeks, and now Joseph Blandisi.
• Call-ups. The San Diego blue line has rarely had a consistent set of pairings for the entire season thus far, and I have spoken about it ad-nauseam here so I won’t go much further except to say: they haven’t really had much to work with this season.

However, it could be said that the exact same timeline of events occurred last season. I even pointed out in the first MOTF of the year that this is very much déjà vu. No, despite all of the above excuses the Gulls should still be finding ways to win games. They have enough – if not more – talent up front than last year to make a difference. So why are they still losing? As best as I can put it the only constant that has changed between last year and this year is Marty Wilford. The Gulls’ long time defense coach earned a well deserved promotion to the big club and his replacement – doesn’t seem to quite have a system to replicate Wilford’s success. I am not trying to say that this is entirely a coaching issue – like I stated; there are a variety of factors coming together which could contribute to the Gulls being unable to succeed like they once have, but this is an area that has changed. There is one other potential variable also…

Fehr Factor

Last season the Gulls had a similarly terrible start, albeit with a much better record at this point of the season than this year’s current crop – but it wasn’t until the acquisition via loan of Eric Fehr that things really turned around. The veteran forward brought so much to the team that it cannot be completely quantified on a spreadsheet. He acted as an almost player-coach, guiding team-mates and teaching them in how best to protect the puck or win board-battles. I am guessing that Ben Street was supposed to be that presence this season, but due to the injuries as well as his initial strong play he is still up in Anaheim. Enter Adam Cracknell.

Crack Dealer

When the Oleksy for Cracknell deal was announced I was initially massively confused. With the then-state-of-affairs between both Welinski and Mahura being with the Ducks and Fowler being still injured, it meant that the Gulls would almost definitely need to rely on regular minutes from at least one ECHL call-up if not two on their blue line. They were hurting on defense. Why? Why Bob Why? Then I realised that in addition to the move to add Matt Berry in the previous week, Eakins had asked his GM to add more grit, leadership, and accountability. They were searching for someone to provide the turn-around that Fehr brought last year. A common characteristic of a young team is lack of mental fortitude. When the Gulls won that hard-fought fight-filled and chippy affair against the Moose but then turned around and fell completely flat in the very next game, I believe that was the moment the call was made that something had to be done. Cracknell provided the game winning shootout goal over the division leaders in the last game. Let’s see if his presence leads to a more consistent effort from the team moving forward.

Do a Line

Cracknell was slotted in on a line with youngster Isac Lundestrom, presumably to aid in the 2018 first rounder’s development in his first year in North America, but this wasn’t the only change to the line-up. Eakins has elected to completely switch lines around in a move that has me scratching my head. The once very consistent and always great Sideroff-Thomson-Dostie line is no more, with either Sideroff or Dostie (or both) being scratched on a night-on night-off basis. Hell, even Thomson was scratched for the most recent game. I may be completely wrong, and it may be injuries or illness that is forcing the coach’s hand (and actually makes way more sense)… but without word or updates on that, I can only assume and hope that this line gets put back together eventually. Meanwhile Terry and Jones were split up to start the last game – another weird call as they have shown great chemistry. Essentially none of the lines made a heck of a lot of sense to me in that last game, except for maybe having Kossila and Tropp together. Here is hoping Eakins puts things back to semi-normal for tonight’s game. Oh but speaking of Kossila.

Curious Case of Kalle

Kossila had a noticeably off game in the win over the Barracuda, redeeming things with his shootout conversion but being seemingly half asleep on the play for the first Barracuda goal.

Kalle has eleven points in twelve games but hasn’t exactly been dominating action since his return, and is quietly fading into the chorus while the likes of Jones and Terry take center stage.

I hate to call him out because I love the guy and I still believe this is his year to permanently make the big club, but he needs to shake whatever is ailing him. But on a more positive note..

Max Jones = Beast

Max Jones is in the midst of his coming out party and I would like to take this opportunity to call out all of those who said he was on his way to becoming a bust due to how often he has been injured over the past few years. The first year pro now has twelve points in twenty games, and slowly but surely he is showing why the Ducks elected to call his name with the 24th selection in the 2016 entry draft. He was a physical force in the game against San Jose and not even a vicious stick to the twig’n’berries could stop him. If he can keep this up game in and game out, it won’t be long before he gets the call to Anaheim.

Bonus Notes

#SoyWatch

Tyler Soy now has 14 points in 19 games for the Tulsa Oilers – placing him 4th on the team in scoring. He will need to pick it up again if he wants to see some time with the Gulls this year.

Number Wars

With the departure of Oleksy, it took Chase De Leo less than a hot minute to switch his number to the newly available number 7. I have to admit I do prefer it on him as opposed to his previous 15. Now it looks like the Gulls have their own – more offensively gifted – Andrew Cogliano flying around the ice.

Keep An Eye Out

To make up for my lack of updates lately, I plan on doing a mid-term grades for both the Gulls and other players in the Ducks organisation. Watch this space.

Next Up:

The Ugly Fish come back to town for a rematch tonight – puck drop at 7pm Pacific. Then it’s a home and away with the Ontario Reign on Friday and Saturday – at 7pm and 3pm respectively.