Schneider cites lack of composure

As the the Ducks head into tonight’s second game of a home-and-home with the Edmonton Oilers, it’s becoming harder to figure out which team is going to appear.

The recent three-game trip to western Canada was emblematic of their wildly inconsistent ways.

Are the Ducks the team that efficiently handled an injury-plagued Calgary team, or are they the team that collapsed at the first sign of trouble against Edmonton and Vancouver?

Maybe both.

“As a team, we need to keep our composure,” defenseman Mathieu Schneider said.

“You look at the Vancouver game, we didn’t do it. We lose the Vancouver game and it’s like the sky is falling in.

“We come back with a win against Calgary and everything’s great again. We come back and have another game like [Friday] and we’re down at the bottom.

“You can’t do that over an 82-game schedule. It’s impossible. It just wears you down.”

The clearest sign of their recent instability has been their penchant of becoming frustrated and taking ill-advised penalties in the third period of the two defeats.

Coach Randy Carlyle said the roughing penalties the Ducks took in the third period of Friday’s 5-1 loss to the Oilers were “unacceptable.”

“To me, that just cheapens us,” he said.

Inconsistency aside, the Ducks are in the thick of the Pacific Division race, sitting in a second-place tie with San Jose with both only four points behind Dallas. Because of its great start, only Detroit has pulled away from the rest of the Western Conference.

Schneider said it is up to experienced players such as himself, captain Chris Pronger, defenseman Sean O’Donnell and forwards Todd Marchant and Rob Niedermayer to point the Ducks in the right direction.

“But we can’t look and say it’s happening to Dallas, it’s happening to San Jose,” Schneider said. “We have to fix what’s going on in here and it’s got to come from the veterans.”

For now, the Ducks insist they’ve put things behind them.

“We turned the page,” Carlyle said. “You can’t change what happened. We can sure make an impression on what we’re going to do for [today’s] game.”

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TODAY

vs. Edmonton, 5 p.m., Ch. 56

Site -- Honda Center.

Radio -- 830.

Records -- Ducks 12-11-4; Oilers 11-14-1.

Record vs. Oilers -- 0-1-1.

Update -- Center Ryan Getzlaf has points in 10 of his last 11 games -- seven goals and eight assists over that span. The three points Oilers center Shawn Horcoff had Friday were one short of his season high.

Tickets -- (877) 945-3946.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com