Dallas Leaves Ducks’ Defense Seeing Stars

DALLAS — For a solid 60 minutes Wednesday at Reunion Arena, the Mighty Ducks didn’t allow a goal, or even a shot.

Of course, that was during a closed-door meeting Coach Ron Wilson called Wednesday morning as he attempted to revive his suddenly faltering team after St. Louis scored seven goals against them Tuesday night.

By game time Wednesday night, the rubber was flying again, and this time it was even worse for the Ducks. The Dallas Stars scored three goals in the first period, two in the second and four in the third in a 9-2 victory that set records for most goals against the Ducks, largest margin of defeat and most shots allowed--a mind-boggling 51.

The Stars’ Mike Modano, a 50-goal scorer last season who had only one goal in his first five games, had two goals and four assists Wednesday.

The Ducks again had seven rookies in the lineup, including Paul Kariya and 18-year-old defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky. But the blame is landing in the laps of many of the players who gritted out 33 victories last season.

“We talk about bumps in the road, this is our biggest one yet,” Wilson said. “It’s not just how the young guys are responding. Where the hell are the rest of the guys? You don’t see Oleg out there on the ice for all the goals. Where the hell are the people who played last year?”

It could have been worse.

Derian Hatcher and Neal Broten both had chances at a nearly open net in the first period but didn’t score. By 7:27 of the second period, Wilson replaced Mikhail Shtalenkov with Guy Hebert, switching goalies in mid-game for the second time in 24 hours.

“The goalies are back on their heels as well, with the volume of shots they’re facing,” Wilson said.

Who could blame them? The Ducks, who were hemmed in their own zone much of the game, managed only 28 shots. They went the first 3:33 of a five-minute power play without taking a shot in the second period after Shane Churla got a game misconduct for checking Robert Dirk from behind.

The offense is struggling, but it starts with a defense that can’t get the puck out of the Ducks’ end.

Defenseman Bobby Dollas, who had a plus-minus rating of plus-20 last season, is spiraling downward at an alarming rate.

“I’m not blaming anybody, but we’ve got to learn to play together again,” said Dollas, who partly blamed the 3 1/2-month lockout. “During the layoff, we got together and we were playing a little too much river hockey. You get a lot of bad habits. We’re out there as if we’re playing river hockey.”

One of the biggest questions from the outset of this season was whether the rookies and veterans would gel--and whether the journeymen and fringe players who overachieved last season would remember exactly how much work it took.

“I think we forget that sometimes last year we had to take a punch in the head to hold up somebody,” Dollas said. “The team hasn’t changed that much. It’s a real cop-out to blame the new guys. Our new guys are working real hard. We’re not doing the little things we did last year. If a team goes in the zone two-on-three, we’re letting guys slip away. It’s a lack of communication between the forwards and the defense, and what happens now is you don’t trust each other. Instead of in-your-face hockey, it’s like putting your stick out.”

It was one of the rookies who spared the Ducks from being shut out. With his team down, 7-0, and the Stars on a power play after Todd Ewen took a five-minute major for elbowing, Kariya sprinted out to pick up the puck for a breakaway, beating goalie Andy Moog to the puck in a desperate race. Kariya fell after he got the puck, then recovered to tuck it into the open net at 13:05 of the third period. It was his seventh point in seven games.

Tverdovsky scored the other goal--his first in the NHL--at 15:55, making the score 8-2. Dave Gagner scored the Stars’ final goal with 11 seconds left.

“I believe there’s nothing bad about anything as long as you learn from it,” Kariya said.

“We’re not playing with confidence. When we were winning we were doing it with great goaltending and timely scoring. We couldn’t continue that way. We sort of got ahead of ourselves. Our good start gave us a fake air of confidence, and it got shoved in our face.”

Duck Notes

Mike Modano’s six points are the most against the Ducks in one game. The Kings’ Wayne Gretzky had five last season in Anaheim . . . Duck winger Stu Grimson received a game misconduct for cross-checking in the third when he pushed Paul Broten’s head into the boards with his fist after Broten scored in the third. . . . Center Patrik Carnback was scratched because of illness.