Ducks in a Deep Hole

It was supposed to be a fresh episode in this series.

Little did the Mighty Ducks know that Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against the Edmonton Oilers would look more like an old rerun.

In a virtual repeat performance of their Game 1 win on Friday night, the Oilers used some key plays by their veterans and rode the hot goaltending of Dwayne Roloson for another 3-1 victory that put the Ducks in a deep 2-0 series hole Sunday night at the Arrowhead Pond.

The Oilers have found a winning formula. They got a power-play goal for the second consecutive game, this one from Chris Pronger. Instead of Ales Hemsky, it was Fernando Pisani providing the decisive goal in the second period.

Michael Peca got the empty-net goal on this night as he scored in his third consecutive playoff game. And the Oilers have now won six in a row in the postseason despite a team-wide flu bug that knocked forward Raffi Torres and defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron out of the lineup.

With the city of Edmonton awaiting the return of its team for Game 3 Tuesday night and the Stanley Cup finals in sight, Oilers Coach Craig MacTavish says he doesn’t want his team to waste an opportunity to close the series out at a sure-to-be raucous Rexall Place.

“We want to go back there with the mentality that we’re down two-nothing and have a real hunger,” MacTavish said. “It’s not that we won’t anyway.

“We want to play the type of hockey we played in San Jose when we were down two-nothing and really ride the emotion that the fans are going to give us in our own building and continue to make home-ice advantage a real advantage for us.”

The Ducks have often tapped into their deep well of resiliency this season. Now they must hope it hasn’t run dry.

They must also do it in a place where they haven’t won since Feb. 24, 1999, a span of 12 games.

“We know there’s going to be full energy in that building,” Scott Niedermayer said. “The city’s excited up there. We’re going to go in there and play hard as well as can in two nights and try to get the job done that [particular] night.”

By now, the Ducks are wondering what it must take to get the puck past Roloson. They outshot the Oilers for the second consecutive game and generated better scoring chances than in the Game 1 defeat.

Instead, they are running into a goalie reaching his peak after a season spent rotating with Manny Fernandez in Minnesota before falling out of favor and being traded. All the Ducks could muster was Jeff Friesen’s backhanded goal that tied the score in the second period.

“We had that goalie on his back and were banging at the puck, but it wasn’t finding a way into the net,” forward Joffrey Lupul said. “We did everything tonight except score goals.”

In all, Roloson stopped 33 shots. The 36-year-old goalie has given up only two goals in his last six periods.

MacTavish said he thought Roloson was a better goalie than his 6-17-1 record in Minnesota this season. In 24 games, he has a 3.00 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage.

“I mean, the numbers were all there,” MacTavish said. “Obviously he didn’t play as much this year as he had in the past with Fernandez [there].... They had decided that Manny was their No. 1 goalie, but when you look at the number and the wins and the losses, it’s obvious he didn’t get the run support in Minnesota.”

Sunday was another night when the Ducks’ top line of Teemu Selanne, Andy McDonald and Chris Kunitz struggled to put together any consistent offense. The trio went scoreless and has one fewer point in this series than Roloson, who got his second assist in two games on Peca’s empty-netter.

“It’s a little frustrating, we get opportunities and we don’t get goals,” Selanne said. “We could have scored three or four goals tonight. We had those chances and the puck wouldn’t go in. You can’t win games scoring one goal. I have to do a better job and score. Our line has to do better.”

By now, the Ducks are hoping to write a better ending.

“The momentum is in their favor,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We worked extremely hard in this hockey game and didn’t get any results for it. So our level of commitment has to rise beyond what we did today.”