Ducks hope to end slide in matchup with slumping Jackets

Hockey Betting Lines

03/09/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Anaheim Ducks know that their current seven-game homestand might represent their best chance to get back into the playoff picture. However, after a less-than-stellar start to the residency, they should be happy to see the Columbus Blue Jackets coming to town.

Anaheim aims to snap a three-game losing streak while also handing Columbus a sixth setback in a row tonight at Honda Center.

The Ducks have lost their first three games since the Olympic break (0-2-1), including two straight at home. They saw their franchise-record 11-game home win streak end last Wednesday versus Colorado, and after a road loss to Phoenix on Saturday, Anaheim was upended by Montreal, 4-3, in a shootout at Honda Center on Sunday.

Corey Perry, Lubomir Visnovsky and Scott Niedermayer all scored in the first period to stake the Ducks to an early lead, but the Habs netted the next three goals and forced extra time by scoring twice in the game's final 1:50. Anaheim allowed the game-tying goal with 10.7 ticks left.

"With the way we played early in the game, we should have been able to get these two points [Saturday]," Niedermayer said. "They just hung around and waited for a couple of mistakes. They took advantage of it. It's pretty disappointing right now."

The Ducks nearly prevailed in the shootout, as goaltender Jonas Hiller appeared to have stopped Montreal's Brian Gionta in the third round with his team leading the session. However, Hiller drifted back towards the net on the stop and inadvertently knocked the puck into his own goal.

The officials reviewed the tally, as the whistle had not been blown, and confirmed the call on the ice. After James Wisniewski could not score for the Ducks in the fourth round, Tomas Plekanec fired a wrister past Hiller's glove for the game-winner.

Hiller stopped 40 shots in a hard-luck defeat that has the Ducks six points back of a playoff spot.

Anaheim lost its first two meetings with the Blue Jackets this year, but notched a 3-1 win in Columbus when the teams last met on December 12 to earn its seventh win in its last 10 versus the Blue Jackets. The Ducks, though, have dropped two straight and five of their last eight at home to Columbus.

The Blue Jackets don't have much momentum heading into this one. They have lost five straight, their longest skid since a season-high nine-game slide from December 10-26, and are coming off last night's 6-0 loss at Los Angeles in which they were outshot 35-11. Columbus managed only three shots in the first period and another two in the second.

"That was embarrassing," said the Blue Jackets' R.J. Umberger afterward. "We didn't play smart. We are our own worst enemies out there."

Steve Mason was tagged for four goals on 13 shots and did not survive the first period. Mathieu Garon stopped 20-of-22 shots the rest of the way.

To make matters worse, leading scorer Rick Nash left Monday's loss with a lower-body injury and his status for tonight is unknown. He leads the team with 28 goals and 57 points. Fellow forward Kristian Huselius is unlikely for tonight due to hand injury.

Columbus fell to 3-3-2 since replacing Ken Hitchcock on February 3 with interim head coach Claude Noel and is 13 points out of a playoff spot.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.