Ducks coach Dallas Eakins left his second line of Danton Heinen, Adam Henrique and Jakob Silfverberg on the bench for an extended period of time during a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night in which Anaheim fell to 1-2-1 on the young season. Each of them is scoreless so far this season
"I have extremely high expectations for Rico, Heinen, Silfverberg," Eakins said. "There's probably a couple of others in there we could have put on the bench, but you do still have to play, and you don't want to kill people either."
Anaheim's top line of Sonny Milano, Ryan Getzlaf and Rickard Rakell have also gotten off to a slow start, with only one point among them (a Getzlaf assist) in four games.
"Passion, responsibility, commitment - that's what this is about," Eakins said. "We're not going to sit here and sing 'Kumbaya' and be patient and make sure everybody's happy. There's got to be accountability. We're here to win and nothing else.
"We want to roll lines, everybody involved, everybody with passion, commitment and a whole lot of grit. The last thing any coach wants to do is put anybody on the bench. But that should have been just a shot just across that line's bow. We were trying to ignite the whole team. That's where we're at. Our guys have to be better. There has to be more passion and feel privileged to be out there."
To the Ducks' credit, they did bounce back after being down 2-0 early in the middle frame Wednesday night to the Wild, getting goals from Nic Deslauriers and Cam Fowler in that period to tie it up. But once again Anaheim struggled to generate offense in the third.
"They need to be very, very good each and every night. We've already talked this season about accountability. We have to win. If you're not going to play up to your standards or up to what your expectation is, sometimes you might find yourself (on the bench)."
Tonight the Ducks will play a second straight game without defenseman Josh Manson, who will be out six weeks with an oblique muscle injury suffered in Monday night's home opener. Manson was replaced Wednesday night by Jani Hakanpaa, who skated with Cam Fowler.
Ryan Miller had 29 saves in the losing effort as John Gibson was given the night off, and Eakins confirmed Gibson will be back in the Anaheim net tonight.
