Another Goose Egg for Ducks : Hockey: They are shut out for second game in a row, this time in 3-0 loss to Blackhawks and Belfour.

The Mighty Ducks certainly have zeroed in on the problem.

Twice in a row, as a matter of fact.

After a 3-0 loss to Ed Belfour and the Chicago Blackhawks in front of 21,546 Sunday afternoon at the United Center, the Ducks have been shut out in consecutive games. Friday night, they lost to Dallas, 4-0.

It’s ugly, but it doesn’t set any records. Last March, the Ducks were shut out three times in a row during a scoreless streak that lasted 200 minutes 26 seconds.

Against Chicago, if not for a couple of crucial mistakes by the Ducks, the score might have been different.

It might have been 0-0. Is that really any comfort?

Twenty games into the season, the Ducks have scored a mere 41 goals, a smidgen above two a game. It’s hardly any wonder they’ve lost 11 of their last 15 and are in last place in the Western Conference, one point behind the Kings.

Belfour made only 16 saves to continue his mastery over the Ducks. He has played them seven times and shut them out four. This one was the 27th shutout of his career and his league-leading fourth of the season. It was his second of the year against the Ducks.

“I think it has a lot to do with the defense in front of me,” Belfour said. “Our team plays such good defense it makes it a lot easier for myself.”

Duck defenseman Robert Dirk wore a pained expression after the game, and that was because the only goal that mattered went into the net off him a little more than four minutes into the game as he tried to clear the rebound of a shot by Jeremy Roenick during a Chicago power play. Instead, he knocked the puck past goalie Guy Hebert and over the goal line.

“It just went in off me,” said Dirk, usually one of the team’s steadiest defenders. “It hit the post and hit me and then hit Guy and hit me again. It was one of those bad bounces. . . . Why can’t something like that go in for us? It was my responsibility. I was in front of the net and Guy makes the save and I’ve got to clear the rebound.”

Roenick was already past the net watching when he saw the light go on after the awkward tangle of Hebert and Dirk.

“I was almost back to the bench by then, it was great,” Roenick said. “You make some and you miss some, and some go in off other people.”

The Blackhawks scored another power-play goal in the first minute of the second period when Joe Murphy swept a rebound into a nearly open net after Hebert went down to make the initial save and Duck defenseman David Williams didn’t clear the rebound. The final goal was an empty-netter by Christian Ruuttu with 13 seconds left.

It was a bit of revenge for the Blackhawks, who were embarrassed by a 3-1 loss last Wednesday at The Pond.

The Ducks barely threatened to spoil the shutout in the third, managing only three shots, though a number of shots on good chances went wide. Garry Valk had one of the best opportunities of the game when Bob Corkum fed a blind backhanded pass to him in the slot and Valk fired low, but Belfour gloved it.

“I wish I had that one back,” said Valk, who second-guessed himself about not trying to go high on Belfour. “But when you’re struggling you don’t want to waste a good chance by maybe putting it over the net and then everybody on the bench will be slumping.

“When the team’s struggling and not putting the puck in the net, maybe you put too much pressure on yourself that every shot has to go in.”

Valk and Corkum said the pressure of the team’s struggle has led to some “yelling” and “personality conflicts” on the bench and in the dressing room recently but said the approach was more “positive” Sunday. The quickest cure would be a couple of goals.

“Sometimes you just need a lucky break, a lucky goal,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “We’ve just got to stick to it. We generally played well.”