The Ducks got a much needed win on Thursday night, something that has been rare this season. That brings the Ducks record to 5-7-2, good enough (or is that bad enough?) for 14th in the Western Conference.

The good news for the team is that things are finally starting to come together. The past four games have been positive steps for the team and a sign that things are headed in the right direction.

Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu were expected to have instant Finnish magic on ice. Like a fine wine, this pairing needed a little longer to develop to its full potential and there are signs that things are close.

Koivu has a four game point streak with a goal and four assists in that span. He assisted on both of Selanne’s goals last night and the two of them seem to finally be finding one another on the ice.

“I knew coming in here that I had to be patient,” Koivu said. “With a new style and a new team, there’s a lot of stuff that I knew it was going to take some time to get adjusted and I didn’t really feel comfortable out there. The last four or five games I feel that our line has been creating more chances”

Coach Randy Carlyle is seeing positive signs, too.

“We’ve been looking for that chemistry and they have too. It’s not an easy thing to do. Their expectations as individuals are very high. Hopefully, this is the the start of it.”

The penalty killing is another area that has made huge strides in the past few games. The Ducks have killed the last 12 penalties in a row. They are still 28th in the NHL with a penalty killing rate of 74.6%, but that has risen by 4% in the past two games alone and will continue to improve if they continue at this rate. Heaven knows they have plenty of opportunities to kill penalties, considering how many are called on the team.

“We knew we had to do something,” said goaltender Jonas Hiller. “We were struggling a little on it in the beginning of the year. We worked hard at it in practice. Everybody was working hard. We just have to keep it up and do the same job next game.”

That next game is tomorrow night, a rematch against Phoenix, whom they played last Saturday. Defenseman James Wisniewski will be back in the line-up after missing two games under suspension. Wisniewski was suspended for a hit on Shane Doan and now he makes it back just in time to meet up with Doan once again.

“I think he’s got to play his game, just be himself, play hard,” cautioned Carlyle. “I don’t think you have to worry about his commitment to the battle on the game, but he can’t be sidetracked. Our focus is winning the hockey game. Anything short of that is unacceptable.”

Needless to say, with a win last night, the practice today was much more upbeat and there were a lot more smiles on the players’ faces. The players had another reason to smile, too. Equipment manager, Doug Shearer, was back on the job after being gone over a month with a burst appendix. He has no idea how long he walked around with the appendix burst, but he realized after the fact that trying to gut out the pain was not necessarily the smartest thing to do. Now that he has recovered, he’s just happy “it will never happen again!”

Welcome back Sluggo!