Playoff Chokes Now Define This Ducks Era After Game 7 Defeat to Predators

Four straight seasons, four straight Game 7 elimination games.

All four of them on home ice. All four of them losses.

The Anaheim Ducks are creating quite a legacy for themselves.

They’re the group that can’t get it done.

And this season, it’s worse than ever—this time coming in the first round with a 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators at Honda Center on Wednesday night.

The Preds—playing the first Game 7 in team history—grabbed a 2-0 lead before the end of the first period on goals from Colin Wilson and Paul Gaustad, then clung to it for the final 40 minutes, knowing all they’d need to move on to the second round was goaltender Pekka Rinne’s best night of his postseason against a Ducks team that has clearly seen its Stanley Cup window close.

“What a job by us," Rinne said on the ice after the game. "Defending, blocking shots, our [penalty kill] has been great all series and same thing tonight. That’s a good hockey team over there. I’m just so proud right now. Big win for us. I’m so happy."

He had every reason to be.

Corey Perry couldn’t find a way to get a puck past him in the entire seven-game series. Ryan Getzlaf finished with a pair of goals but just five points in the first round.

Ryan Kesler did score his fourth goal of the series in the third period on Wednesday to give the crowd and his team some life. But that was ultimately short-lived.

Just like the Ducks’ 2016 playoff run.

The consequences of yet another playoff collapse for a team that has perennially been considered one of the Stanley Cup front-runners and finished in disappointing fashion could include the firing of head coach Bruce Boudreau—who has coached eight Game 7s in his career but has a record of 1-7. The only one he emerged from victorious was back in 2009, when his Washington Capitals beat the New York Rangers in the first round.

He’s been the man behind the Ducks bench for all four of these disasters.

It’s odd to think Boudreau could be canned and be considered for the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year in the same season, but neither is out of the realm of possibility.

The Ducks overcame a first month in which they won just a single game, storming back from last place in the Western Conference to win the Pacific Division title on the last day of the regular season.

For that, Boudreau may get a few votes.

But for all the regular-season success, there has been nothing but crushing finishes for far too long: a first-round loss to the Detroit Red Wings in 2013, a second-round defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings in 2014 and last year’s Western Conference Final ouster against the Chicago Blackhawks.

In every one of those series, they had two cracks at eliminating their opponents but failed to do so in both Games 6 and 7.

Getzlaf and Perry will rightly face their share of criticism for the failure. They are the stars and leaders of this team but have not been able to win a championship in those roles. Their lone Cup win came in their sophomore season, when they were both in support roles with the 2007 Ducks.

Their regular-season production has been in decline the past couple of years, and soon those cumbersome contracts worth more than $8 million apiece on average per season will feel like a tightening noose as the team struggles to add or keep young talent to support them in their 30s.

Kesler is the only member of the Ducks who displayed any sort of a killer instinct against the Predators.

Talk all you want about being denied by a hot goaltender playing in his first Game 7—and Rinne does deserve credit for his 36-save performance—but his numbers going into the penultimate game were pedestrian.

Rinne had a .901 save percentage and 2.68 goals-against average through the first six games.

The Ducks never should have allowed the series to get to Game 7 to give him the chance to redeem himself.

Where they go from here is anyone's guess. There will be changes—those are inevitable in the salary-cap world, especially when the season ends in disappointment. But the core will likely remain. It will still be Getzlaf and Perry's team.

No longer, though, can Anaheim be defined as a perennial Stanley Cup contender. Who knows, maybe the Ducks will manage to win a big game once the pressure is off.