The tale of Dr Talbot and Mr Sieve

History often talks about the infamous gunslingers of the wild west. Names like John Wesley Hardin, James "Killer" Miller, "Wild" Bill Hancock, Zeb Macahan, Lucky Luke and many others come to mind.

Few mention the worst gunslinger of all time; a fellow who lost every single shootout he ever saw. Legend has it, he was so bad he'd lose shootouts he didn't even participate in. One time, aged seven, he watched and thereby caused Team Canada to lose the Olympic gold medal game to Team Sweden in a shootout. On that fateful day, little Cam Talbot swore he would become the best goalie he could possibly be.

And he's really come a long way. He's a really good goalie. He made 37 saves to secure a surprise point for the Ducks against the heavily favored Washington Capitals last night. Many of those saves were of the astounding variety as per usual he turned in a regular goaltending clinic. However, as the shootout began, Dr Talbot pulled his usual vanishing act and replaced himself with Mr Sieve.

Mr Sieve went on to stop one of six shootout attempts from the Caps as they picked up an extra point they don't even need, but would have been crucial for this Ducks team. This debacle comes right after a shootout loss to the Kings in which Mr Sieve stopped just three of seven. Who would have thought at the time, that Mr Sieve had just turned in a career best performance.

As bad as Mr Sieve was, and as great as Dr Talbot was, others also stood out against the Caps. None more so than manager Sven Henry who in a stroke of genius demoted youngster Nikolaj Ehlers and his -24 rating from the second to the fourth line. Zack Smith was promoted from third to second line duties while Andrew Cogliano was bumped up to replace Smith on the third line.

The result of these moves? Both Ehlers and Smith score goals and were named 1st and 2nd star of the game. They knew what they were doing when they gave the job to this Henry character. Sublime stuff. However, one has to wonder what Andrew Cogliano was doing as had he done his job and scored a goal of his own, Mr Sieve wouldn't have had to come in and cost us a point.

The Ducks will now regroup ahead of another game that looks really winable on paper; a road game against the best team in the league. If we don't make the playoffs with this easy schedule we have nobody to blame but ourselves, and Mr Sieve.