PRO FOOTBALL : Mighty Ducks Lose; Now All They Can Do Is Sit : Hockey: Pittsburgh beats Anaheim, 3-2, as players wonder what future will hold.

Five goals were scored and nine assists were credited, but that didn’t keep the Mighty Ducks’ final exhibition game from seeming pointless.

The Ducks stepped off the ice Sunday after a 3-2 loss to Pittsburgh at The Pond wondering when they will play again--in days, weeks or longer.

“Baseball shot itself in the foot. I hope we don’t have the same gun in our hands,” said Coach Ron Wilson, who feels like a man in the middle between the players and management. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says the season will not start until a new collective-bargaining agreement is reached, and the Ducks have nothing but practice and uncertainty between now and their scheduled opener, Saturday at Dallas.

“You knew you had exhibitions before,” Wilson said. “You knew those games would be played. Now is when the real thick cloud hangs over everything.”

With the situation so uncertain, the Ducks have stopped making roster moves, and still have 30 players on the team at a time when they would usually have fewer than 25. Instead of regular-season intensity, they played a game that center Bob Corkum called “lackadaisical at best.”

The Ducks and Penguins staged a solidarity handshake at game’s end, but were met with some scattered boos among the crowd of 16,799.

“Players have the impression owners are going to take all the heat if there’s a lockout,” Wilson said. “But nobody sympathizes with the players anymore. They don’t sympathize with the owners either. I don’t think anybody has any sympathy for pro sports at all anymore, period.”

Said Corkum: “I think the fans are just frustrated and understandably so.”

Corkum, the Ducks’ player representative to the NHL Players Assn., said he believes the fans do not understand the issues. “They lost out on baseball and now they’re in jeopardy of losing hockey,” he said. “It’s an understandable reaction to be a little bitter.”

Luc Robitaille, who didn’t play against the Kings Friday because of a tender ankle, is playing on a powerhouse line with Ron Francis and Jaromir Jagr after being traded to the Penguins in July. He had a goal and an assist, and was greeted with the familiar “Luuuuuc” cheer--even when he was called for a cross-checking penalty.

“This is very bad for the game. We’re at a real high right now,” he said. “We’ve got to stick together as players. We’ve all got to be strong as a union right now.”

Duck Notes

Luc Robitaille took another veiled swipe at King management and Wayne Gretzky, who he believes helped engineer his trade. “Players here are just playing the game. It makes a big difference,” he said. “They don’t have to worry about what’s going on upstairs or what’s going on outside the team. Sometimes you’d rather score less goals and win the Stanley Cup.” . . . Duck management has planned for the potential postponement of the season by securing and agreeing to pay for ice time at Glacial Garden for practice beginning Oct. 1, said Bob Corkum, the NHLPA representative. He said he is not sure what the union stance on organized practice would be because players will not be paid. . . . Paul Kariya finished the exhibition season with eight points in seven games, and had only his second pointless game Sunday. . . . Guy Hebert is expected to rejoin the team Tuesday or Wednesday after going home to New York because of a family medical emergency. . . . Rookie defenseman Nikolai Tsulygin, who negotiated a contract that calls for him to return to Russia rather than play with San Diego assuming he doesn’t make the team, scored his first exhibition goal. Coach Ron Wilson, who thinks Tsulygin should play in San Diego and continue to learn English, called his plan to return to Russia “a big mistake.”