Expansion Troubles the Ducks : NHL: The Lightning, in its second year, deals Anaheim a 4-2 loss.

The Mighty Ducks have discovered their X-factor.

Expansion teams.

The team has banned “expansion” from their vocabularies, but they can’t ban the NHL’s other new teams from their schedule. And after a 4-2 loss to Tampa Bay in front of 16,480 at Anaheim Arena on Sunday--in a game they dominated for the first two periods--the Ducks are 0-6 against the league’s other new teams.

This, just as they prepare to play the Florida Panthers, the other 1993 expansion team, for the first time on Tuesday.

The Ducks outshot the second-year Lightning, 41-23, and took a 2-1 lead into the third.

But they were 0 for seven on the power play, including a five-minute opportunity in the second, and the insurance goals they didn’t score made them vulnerable. Tampa Bay made them pay with three third-period goals, including Brian Bradley’s empty-netter with 48 seconds left.

That was all that saved the Ducks from their 11th one-goal loss.

“I don’t know if we expect a 2-1 lead against a team like Tampa Bay to be enough, but any team--Tampa Bay for sure with Petr Klima and Denis Savard--has enough firepower to put you away if you let down for a little bit,” Duck right wing Terry Yake said. “We let down and didn’t come to work in the third period.”

It was an ugly loss, because it looked so much like a victory until the third.

“This was a big game for us,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “You have to win games like this, we’re playing a tired team. We lost our patience and poise and took our jolly old sweet time in the first five minutes of the third period, and it cost us.”

The third period turned as the Ducks had to fear that it would. The Lightning tied the score at 2:31 on Klima’s deflection of Chris LiPuma’s point shot. Before the period was half over, Tampa Bay led, 3-2, after Marc Bureau picked up a neutral zone pass from Chris Joseph, who had just emerged from the penalty box, and broke out front alone. Goalie Ron Tugnutt made the first save on the breakaway, but Bureau swatted his rebound between Tugnutt’s pads to score at 8:22.

Risky defensive play led to the breakaway, and if that sounds familiar, it should.

“The two (defensemen Bill Houlder and Alexei Kasatonov) were rushing up and probably didn’t realize the situation, timewise,” Wilson said. “They lose the puck and both turned the wrong way, each one probably assuming the other one’s covering. We’ve made those same mistakes in some other close games, and we should have learned from our previous mistakes, but it’s the same couple of people making the same mistakes.”

Tugnutt saw it happening.

“I started hollering and banging my stick, I knew the guy was going to be coming out of the penalty box,” he said. “Next thing I know there’s a breakaway.”

The lead was 2-1 after goals by Todd Ewen and Steven King in the first period, but the second period was not a thing of beauty. Among the lowlights were Joe Reekie’s cross-check of Garry Valk into the boards that left the Duck winger crumpled motionless on the ice.

Valk suffered a concussion and required four stitches above his right eye. Reekie earned a major penalty and a game misconduct. But the Ducks wasted the five-minute power play that included a two-man advantage for a minute.

Tampa Bay managed a mere three shots during the period, and the Ducks’ lead in shots ballooned to 31-12.

“In the second period, you think how can it be 2-1, we should be beating them by more,” Yake said. “It’s a simple fact we can’t throw our sticks out there and walk away with two points. We don’t have the firepower to do that.”

They had enjoyed far too many chances to be clinging to a one-goal lead. They had trouble finishing, with King fanning in front of the net and Shaun Van Allen hitting Lightning goaltender Daren Puppa’s skate on a breakaway, to mention a couple.

“I think you’ve got to give Daren Puppa some credit,” Wilson said. “We didn’t find the chink in the armor. The bottom line is Daren Puppa won the game for them, simple as that. You have over 40 shots and basically we outshot them 2-1. You do that, usually the goalie has done an outstanding job and he did.”

Duck Notes

Valeri Karpov, the Mighty Ducks’ third-round draft choice, could join the the team after the Olympics if he and the team reach terms and he plays for the Russian national team at Lillehammer, Norway. General Manager Jack Ferreira is meeting Karpov’s agent, Don Horne in Orlando, Fla., this week. “We’re not real far apart,” Horne said. The sides couldn’t agree on financial terms before the season, leaving the Ducks without a player they expected to contribute offensively. Karpov, 22, is touring with the Russian team playing a series against the U.S. and has been seen wearing a Duck cap and watch. “One of the reasons I’m not playing there is I want to play in the Olympics,” he said through a translator.

Defenseman Mark Ferner returned from a charley horse to played for only the second time in 10 games. . . . Left wing Tim Sweeney missed a fourth consecutive game because of a virus but is likely to return this week.