There’s Some Life in Ducks

Continuing a tradition as old as the league itself, the NHL playoffs will be Duckless in 1995.

The end came Sunday afternoon--another 2-1 loss, this time at the Forum--and it was a predictable conclusion to the Ducks’ second season, and a logical one, and, all in all, not a bad one.

There will be other seasons, better seasons for the Ducks to make their playoff debut. This one, with its mutant schedule and muted conference races, had too many strings attached.

Too many asterisks, too.

The Ducks wouldn’t want these kind of footnotes haunting them for eternity:

* Qualified for playoffs, although season was rendered a shambles by a mindless, pointless, needless 3 1/2-month player lockout.

* Qualified for playoffs, although due to mutilated regular-season schedule, needed to win only 18 games, instead of the customary 40.

* Qualified for playoffs, largely because artificial 48-game schedule did not require them to play Quebec, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Montreal, New Jersey and the defending Stanley Cup holders, the New York Rangers.

* Qualified for playoffs, largely because Western Conference was so bad it was laughable, with two in its eight-team post-season field advancing with losing records, several of them utterly disgraceful.

You’ve heard the old Groucho Marx line about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him?

Why would the ’95 Ducks want to belong to any Stanley Cup tournament that would have them?

With a winning percentage of .367?

With the worst power play in the league?

With the worst penalty killing in the league?

What kind of accomplishment is that?

Any Duck playoff berth this year would have been tainted and, probably, painful. First-round opponents would have been the Detroit Red Wings, who, if track records amount to anything, would have crushed the Ducks. Detroit has never lost to Anaheim. The ledger after eight meetings has Detroit ahead, 7-0-1. Two final scores have been 5-2, another 7-2.

When the Ducks do reach the playoffs for the first time, they might like to go in standing up, not crawling, and they might like to stick around for more than four games.

How about this time next year?

“After next season,” Ducks goaltender Guy Hebert said Sunday, “there are going to be a lot of happy people around here. They’re going to be happy with the trades and the changes we made this year. We’ve upgraded the talent and we’ve lowered the (team’s) average age a few years. If it doesn’t benefit us now, it will next year.”

Defenseman Bobby Dollas, like Hebert a charter Duck, talks about a team transforming its personality over a span of mere weeks--going “from a very, very tight-checking, grinding team to a team that can score goals.”

Sometimes more than one a game, even.

The new Ducks, the Mike Sillinger-Todd Krygier-Jason York-Dave Karpa-Milos Holan Ducks, have played .500 hockey for a month and a half. In the Pacific Division, in 1995, playing .500 hockey for 3 1/2 months gets you second place.

“We’ve done a lot of good things lately,” Dollas said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have this team earlier in the season.”

Sillinger and York for Stu Grimson and Mark Ferner has been the steal of Jack Ferreira’s tenure as Duck general manager, a CARE package postmarked from Detroit. In exchange for an amiable goon and a third-line defenseman who found his way to the Ducks because he couldn’t play for Ottawa, Ferreira brought on board a real two-way player in Sillinger and a quick, useful defenseman in York.

Krygier, acquired from Washington in early February, now joins Sillinger and Paul Kariya on the first line and scored his 10th goal Sunday, tying him for second on the Ducks.

Holan, acquired from Philadelphia in early March, has developed into the power-play quarterback Tom Kurvers never was and already ranks third on the Ducks in shots attempted.

And Karpa, acquired from Quebec in early March, is the nagging mosquito the Kings wish they had--and could have, if GM Sam McMaster hadn’t given Ferreira the chance by backing away from Karpa when the medical reports were less than perfect.

“I’m happy with the team we have here now,” Hebert said. “Now, we have a little bit of everything. We have more offense, a couple legit 20-goal scorers (Kariya and Sillinger) over the course of an 84-game season.”

Too bad, Hebert was sad to report, the 1995 course must end at Game 48.

“We were just getting it together,” Hebert said. “The short season hurt us.”

Needs for 1995-96?

They are as obvious as the black and white on the stat sheet, but Dollas recited them one more time.

“Next, we have to work on our special teams,” he said. “We have to be committed to improving them. We need someone to take charge on the power play. I don’t know who or what, but it has to be someone who puts the team ahead of everything else.”

The Ducks need that, and a break in a schedule. As in, say, a full 84 games.