"We've got to play as well as we can every night. The positive from that (Detroit) game is you know what you can do."

There is no more room to have an off-night. The Ducks (21-24-9) are 11 points back of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference and they'll be down to 27 games remaining. But Boudreau has been around the ice enough to know that there is an inherent challenge with getting a team to play at a high level every time out.

"I don't want to overdramatize everything," he said. "It's never been done. You've got to believe it's tough. To play at the top of your game every game for what would entail 40 games to make the playoffs is a very difficult thing. But I think that it's a good group that believes that they can do it."

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