Ducks Are Blanked by Their Kind of Team : Hockey: Blackhawks make it tough to get a shot and Belfour makes it tough to score, 3-0.

Center Bob Corkum admitted that the Mighty Ducks’ 3-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night felt “kind of blah,” but he said it with a certain admiration.

“They played solid defense tonight, no doubt about it,” Corkum said. “I don’t feel like we played a bad game. The effort was there.”

Chicago did to the Ducks what the Ducks would like to do to others.

“That’s a good example of how we’re going to have to play,” defenseman Bobby Dollas said. “Chicago’s been doing that for centuries .”

Chicago’s Ed Belfour recorded his 25th career shutout in front of 17,174 at The Pond, but he had to make only 16 saves to get his third shutout in six games against the Ducks.

“It’s not the goalie, it’s team defense,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “Your chances of scoring aren’t that good when you get 16 shots.

“We’re playing a great defensive team, and one of the best in the league. I think the chances were about even. They have better finishers than we do right now.”

Their finishers include Jeremy Roenick, who had his fourth and fifth goals of the season. He’s a center Wilson says might be his favorite player in the league, rugged on both ends of the ice, and a leader to boot.

One of the Ducks’ last best chances to avoid being shut out came when they went on a power play at 8:52 of the third. But they managed only one shot and were unable to score on one last power play in the final three minutes, falling to four for 36 with a man advantage this season.

The Ducks and Blackhawks were content to engage in a defensive battle for much of the game--especially the Ducks, considering the defensive collapse they emerged from Sunday. It was the sort of game in which a defenseman, in this case Chris Chelios, could be the No. 1 star while pitching in only one assist.

Through two periods, the teams combined for a mere 20 shots. The Blackhawks scored twice on their first 11 shots. The Ducks were scoreless and Belfour had made only nine saves--and that many only because of a flurry at the end of the second period.

Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov held Chicago off for the first 14 minutes of the game until Greg Smyth’s shot from the right point caromed out to Patrick Poulin on the left side of the crease and Poulin put it in for a 1-0 lead.

The Blackhawks made it 2-0 at 10:44 of the second when Poulin won a battle for the puck along the right-wing boards and sent it out to Roenick, who made a nice move to beat Shtalenkov with a backhander. Roenick scored again at 17:12 of the third.

Duck rookie Valeri Karpov, who was scratched against the Kings Sunday because he had grown tentative after what Wilson called a collapse of confidence, caught a break and was back in the lineup against Chicago. Wilson inserted him because right wing Joe Sacco couldn’t play because of a sprained left thumb.

Veteran center Anatoli Semenov had no such luck, and was scratched for the second game in a row and the third already this season.

Semenov was the Ducks’ best player early last season, but he is in Wilson’s doghouse even though Wilson admires his finesse. The problem seems to be that Semenov has been lax defensively, and produced too little offensively. Wilson can’t help but think Semenov is still playing a little gingerly more than a year after an errant hit by Stu Grimson dislocated Semenov’s left elbow on Dec. 7, 1993.

Though the injury has healed, Semenov has only three goals and six assists in the 27 games since the injury--including one goal and two assists this season, along with plus-minus rating of minus-seven.

“He seems a little leery of contact,” Wilson said.