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Bruce Boudreau will have his hands full in Anaheim

Bruce Boudreau

Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau gives instructions after calling a time out in the overtime period of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011. The Capitals won 3-2 in overtime. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

AP

After seeing Randy Carlyle fired after the Ducks beat the Canadiens last night and seeing Bruce Boudreau named to replace him, we’re all still shaking the dust out of our eyes thanks to the whirlwind of action.

When last we saw Boudreau he was watching his former Caps team get humiliated by a broken down Sabres team in Buffalo. Now he gets to play the awkward role once again of a guy filling in mid-season and he’s walking into a situation eerily similar to the one he left.

The Ducks are seeing their top players all struggling. Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan have seen the worst of it up front while Jonas Hiller has had a terrible go of things in goal. The rumors out of Anaheim say that their top stars all tuned out Carlyle leading the team to play so poorly of late dropping 16 of their last 19.

Boudreau’s Caps didn’t slump that hard but faced similar issues. The big difference here is that Boudreau heads to Anaheim as a players’ coach. Carlyle was notoriously hard on the Ducks and worked that team so hard they may have decided collectively that they’d just had enough. Once the message stops getting through there’s not much a coach can do and that’s something Boudreau knows all too well.

Now he heads in with a bevy of superstars capable of filling the net but with a team lacking in depth all over the ice. Anaheim’s essentially got two good lines and a great (but slumping) goalie. Getting Getzlaf and Ryan turned around will cure a lot of ills. Helping the Ducks find their defensive snarl will help too.

If Boudreau’s arrival and team tweaks don’t help turn things around, GM Bob Murray might start getting really nervous about his job and all the insane Bobby Ryan speculation might just persist. This team doesn’t need more distractions, they need answers.