Yake Takes Teammates to Task : Hockey: Mighty Duck center blames defeat on early poor play.

On a scale of one to 10, Terry Yake gave the Mighty Ducks a zero Friday night.

Fifty minutes of good hockey couldn’t erase 10 minutes of awful play in a 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils at Anaheim Arena. Yake called it as he saw it; he knew it wasn’t a pretty sight.

“When you play that poorly for the first 10 minutes, you’re going to lose the hockey game,” Yake said. “I can’t explain it. It’s the fault of all 20 guys. It’s something that’s got to be stopped right away.”

The Ducks skated onto the ice Friday, then promptly fell on their faces. They fell behind, 1-0, less than two minutes into the game. Less than three minutes later, it was 3-0 New Jersey. It was 4-0 after 6:32, then 5-0 after 8:05.

The Ducks battled back after that but couldn’t satisfy Yake. He knew the Ducks’ chances to win were slim after such a bad start.

One-zip would have been OK. Down two, three goals maybe they would have had a chance. But five-zero was too much to overcome.

“We blew it because we let down (for too long),” said Yake, who failed to score a goal for the eighth consecutive game but did assist on the Ducks’ first goal by Tim Sweeney.

Yake hasn’t scored a goal since recording the first hat trick in Duck history in a victory over the New York Rangers on Sept. 19 in Madison Square Garden. He’s surrendered the team’s scoring lead to Anatoli Semenov and is starting to feel the frustration of missed opportunities.

One bad thing led to another, Yake said Friday, and the Ducks couldn’t shake it off, compounding their game-opening funk.

“Probably the biggest reason teams struggle is one (bad thing) leads to two, which leads to three,” Yake said. “When they get one (goal) you have to pick your chins up and regain the momentum. You have to change the momentum immediately.”

The Ducks did the opposite, seeming to take the Devils’ first goal too hard.

Valeri Zelepukin deflected Scott Stevens’ shot from the left point past goalie Ron Tugnutt and the Ducks protested, saying Zelepukin knocked in the puck with a high stick. But after a look at the replay, the officials let the goal stand.

Goals two, three, four and five came in rapid-fire fashion for New Jersey. Tugnutt was replaced by Guy Hebert after Tom Chorske’s goal made it 4-0 after 6:32.

“It was a tough break,” Yake said. “It was not (Tugnutt’s) fault at all. They had enough scoring chances in the first 10 minutes as you’d normally have all game.”

The Ducks finally snapped to life when Coach Ron Wilson called the troops together during a TV timeout.

“We got yelled at on the bench--that was a start,” Yake said.

Scoring chances kept coming for Yake, but he couldn’t put the puck past Devil goalie Martin Brodeur.

“Frustrated is one thing,” Yake said. “Upset with my game is another. Like any night, If I buried my chances it’s a different ballgame.

“I’m confident it will come around. I’m definitely a streaky scorer. It’s a difficult at this (expansion) level to get that streak going.”