Ducks Find Home Isn’t So Sweet : Hockey: After winning four in a row in Canada, they lose, 4-3, to San Jose at Anaheim.

Maybe the Mighty Ducks should sleep in hotel rooms and wash their hair with mini-bottles of shampoo when they are home. Maybe Coach Ron Wilson should make them don overcoats and shiver in meat lockers.

The Mighty Duck road show that swept through Western Canada played Anaheim Arena on Friday afternoon, and the Ducks fell flat in a 4-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks.

A crowd of 17,174, the first sellout since opening night, came out to welcome a team that had beaten Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg in succession and could have set a record for recent expansion teams by winning a fifth game in a row.

Instead, they saw a game that began without a referee on the ice and watched the Ducks blow a 2-0 lead with a defensive performance Wilson called “awful.”

Chuck Harrison, the replacement referee assigned to the game in place of striking NHL officials, had been stranded at his home in Dallas since Thursday evening by a snow storm that forced cancellation of numerous flights out of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. He was unable to fly out the night before the game, and after further delays Friday morning, didn’t arrive until shortly before the second period. A league spokesman said no local substitute was available.

Minor league linesmen Don Moffatt and Stephen Metcalf handled the game in the first period, calling only one penalty, on Duck defenseman Randy Ladouceur for cross-checking.

“I was very pleased with the way the linesmen were reffing in the first period,” Duck tough guy Todd Ewen said. “I was extremely pleased.”

Seriously, the players and coaches voiced no complaints, and supervisor of officials Jim Christison, who was in radio contact with the linesmen from upstairs, said the situation could have arisen with regular officials--except the linesmen would have been more experienced.

The Ducks played the first period with the same defensive, physical style that had succeeded on the road, and had a two-goal lead after Steven King scored his second of the season and Patrik Carnback scored his first of two in the game.

They collapsed in the second, allowing San Jose to score three times. The Sharks scored the go-ahead goal shorthanded after Duck defenseman Mark Ferner’s giveaway at his blue line. Mike Sullivan stepped up to intercept Ferner’s weak pass with the Ducks on a power play, and gave the Sharks a 3-2 lead with his shot from the slot at 14:36.

“I thought our defense had a particularly poor (game) in terms of turnovers and some decisions, and it ended up costing us the game,” Wilson said. “Maybe the fact that we were up, 2-0, and playing quite well, we eased off . . . I just personally felt our defensemen were awful tonight. There were some turnovers and there was some poor coverage and poor decisions.”

Ferner, who had missed the last five games because of a groin injury, was on the ice for two of the Sharks’ goals, as was defenseman Sean Hill. Alexei Kasatonov, Bill Houlder, Bobby Dollas and Randy Ladouceur each were on for one.

“We had a rough night,” Houlder said. “We started off well, but we started backing up, and they started gaining the blue line . . . Once they get moving at that speed, you’re a dead Duck--so to speak.”

The Ducks allowed Johan Garpenlov to walk in for a backhander in front of the net for San Jose’s first goal, and allowed Bob Errey to pass across the slot to Pat Falloon on a power play for the second.

Gaetan Duchesne scored the Sharks’ final goal midway through the third with a spectacular effort by tipping in Falloon’s pass with his outstretched stick. Falloon had been left free to make the pass.

Carnback cut the lead to one goal at 13:50, but San Jose goalie Arturs Irbe held off their efforts to tie it.

The Ducks didn’t blame weariness.

“If there was a letdown, you’d see it in the first period,” Wilson said.

They blamed the loss on getting away from their conservative, defensive road style, saying they need to play “road hockey” at home.

“I just think coming home--for some weird reason--we tried to change our style,” goalie Ron Tugnutt said. “There was no reason to change it. We really didn’t do our game plan in the second period. Next thing you know, we’re down by a goal and it cost us.”

Duck Notes

The Ducks, whose radio broadcasts were being split by two flagship stations, are dropping KLAC (570) after Thursday’s game against the Kings at the Forum, making KEZY-FM (95.9) the sole flagship for the rest of the season. The move was made “to eliminate listener confusion,” club President Tony Tavares said. KLAC was scheduled to broadcast 52 games, but was joining 10 in progress because of conflicts, mostly Laker broadcasts. Earlier this season, KLAC left a Duck game in overtime to broadcast a Laker exhibition pregame show. KEZY originally was broadcasting 32 games . . . Goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov was in Anaheim and said he was told to report to the Ducks instead of accompanying the minor league San Diego Gulls on a trip. He has not been officially recalled, and was not accompanying the team to San Jose for today’s game.