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Boudreau: There’s a ‘dark cloud’ over Getzlaf this season

150802-Ryan-Getzlaf

To say this has been a tough campaign for Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf would be an understatement.

Just ask his head coach.

“It just seems that this year, there’s that dark cloud,” Bruce Boudreau said in the wake of Sunday’s loss to Detroit, per the L.A. Times. “When he makes a mistake, no matter how well he’s played during the course of the game, it seems to cost us.”

The latest Getz-gaffe?

Check it out:

That’s the Anaheim captain turning the puck over in his own zone, leading to Riley Sheahan’s game-winning goal with less than four minutes remaining.

Getzlaf admitted he needed to “make a better play” in this instance, explaining that, because the puck was rolling, he tried to control it first rather than quickly whipping it away to safety.

He then took ownership of the error.

“A mistake like that, it hurts,” he said. “Obviously I can’t do those things.”

As mentioned above, it’s been a season of mistakes for Getzlaf. Sunday’s was the latest, but hardly the most egregious -- that came against Arizona earlier in the campaign:

At this point, it’s fair to wonder if -- not when -- Anaheim can turn this thing around. The Ducks are now at the midway point of the season (Sunday’s game against Detroit was No. 41 of 82), and their leader is still making costly, costly mistakes.

What’s more, the offense looks no closer to breaking out than it did before. Anaheim still sits dead last in the NHL in goals per game, at 1.85 per, and has scored just 11 goals in its last seven games.