Ducks Mighty Upset This Time : Hockey: Wilson bemoans calls and lack of respect in 3-2 loss at Toronto.

The Mighty Ducks lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday in a bounce-of-the-puck game. Maybe the puck has it in for the Ducks.

That’s basically how Duck Coach Ron Wilson feels about NHL referees, claiming they don’t respect his second-year team and its bid to make the playoffs.

“We didn’t catch too many breaks, I’ll tell you that. I’ve sort of come to expect not to get breaks,” he said after a 3-2 loss to Toronto before 15,746 at Maple Leaf Gardens. “It comes down to respect. It shouldn’t matter who gets hooked down or who gets hit from behind.

“I guess we’re just a bunch of cheats. How could a second-year team beat the Maple Leafs? It’s a bunch of baloney.”

Despite the loss, the Ducks are still in the Western Conference race with seven games left, trailing eighth-place San Jose by three points after the Sharks tied Dallas, 5-5.

Let it be noted that the penalties called in the Ducks’ game were even, four apiece for a total of eight minutes. But Wilson wasn’t pleased with some no-calls, or with a slashing penalty called against goalie Guy Hebert that gave Toronto a five-on-three power play in the first period--though the Ducks managed to kill it.

Nor was he happy with referee Mick McGeough for not reviewing the Maple Leafs’ first goal, scored by Todd Gill at 4:51 of the second when the puck hit Hebert’s glove and mask as an onslaught of attackers came into his crease and the puck fell in behind him.

“Pat Burns yells at them and it’s, ‘Yes sir, Mr. Burns,’ ” Wilson said. “I yell and it’s, ‘Shut up, you punk.’ It’ll catch up some day, I guess.”

Hebert said he put his stick to Mike Craig’s leg as nothing more than “a love pat” to let him know he should stay out of his crease and that he was “surprised” by the call.

“I don’t think we do get the respect we probably deserve,” Hebert said. “We’ve only played two years, and really you’ve got to earn respect. You’ve got to win big games like, like this one, to get respect.”

Only 32 seconds after Toronto’s first goal, the Maple Leafs led, 2-0, after Hebert came out and deflected Mike Gartner’s shot only to see the puck carom wide left, right to Mats Sundin, who was wide open and easily scored into the open net.

Mike Sillinger cut the lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 13:51, scoring his first goal since arriving in the trade that sent Stu Grimson to Detroit.

But Gartner scored at 3:26 of the third to make it 3-1, and even though Peter Douris cut the lead to 3-2 at 5:17 with his 10th goal of the season, the Ducks couldn’t get the puck past Felix Potvin. Hebert was pulled for an extra attacker with 1:04 left to no avail.

“I think we deserved better tonight,” said Sillinger, who had another terrific chance when rookie Oleg Tverdovsky set him up with a pass when he was open in the crease, but couldn’t get his stick down.

“I just think on this team there are no so-called stars. In Detroit they have Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Paul Coffey, so I think they tend to get a bit more respect. I have to agree that a team like this doesn’t get as much. But you’ve got to battle for it. You can use all the excuses you want. Plain and simple, we lost. We’ve got to bounce back against Detroit (in the next game on Friday).”

The Ducks have never beaten the Red Wings, and the game is a little larger now.

Perhaps more important than the Detroit game, the Ducks still have a game left against San Jose at home.

“That head-to-head game is such a huge one for us,” Hebert said. “That’s our ace in the hole right now.”

Duck Notes

Terry Yake, who was the Ducks’ leading scorer last season but was traded to Toronto before the season, scored only five points in 19 games with the Maple Leafs this season and is on loan to the minor league Denver Grizzlies. . . . Defenseman Robert Dirk did not make the trip because his wife, Melia, gave birth to a daughter, Aspen Hunter, on Tuesday.