Despite a less-than-glowing review for his performance in Saturday’s 3-2 OT loss to the Kings, Jonas Hiller will be back in goal tonight when the Ducks look to avoid an 0-2 series hole at the Honda Center.
After Game 1, Hiller -- who stopped 33 of 36 shots in his first start since early April -- wasn’t exactly shown a huge vote of confidence from Bruce Boudreau. The Anaheim bench boss said Hiller did an “adequate job.”
“I didn’t think there was much he could do in the goals against,” Boudreau said, per the O.C. Register. “He stopped the ones that he had to.”
Adequate isn’t exactly how Hiller saw it, though:Jonas Hiller says G1 was a “pretty solid” performance considering he hadn’t started in some time (April 6)
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) May 5, 2014
Hiller happy with how team limited Kings scoring chances: “The only ones we gave up they seemed to convert them”
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) May 5, 2014
The Boudreau-Hiller relationship has been tested on numerous occasions over the last month. Near the end of the regular season, Boudreau said the Swiss ‘tender was “really lacking in confidence” and parked Hiller for the start of the Dallas series, opting to go with Danish rookie Frederik Andersen.
Andersen faltered on a couple of occasions, though, forcing Boudreau to re-insert Hiller -- most notably in Game 6, when Hiller backstopped the Ducks to their stunning late-game comeback and OT win, stopping all 12 shots faced.
Adding even more intrigue to the situation, though, was Boudreau’s assertion on Monday that Hiller’s been Anaheim’s No. 1 this whole time...Boudreau on Hiller: “He’s been our No. 1 goalie all along” so easy to go back to him
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) May 5, 2014