Krygier Retains Zeal Despite Playoff Blues : Ducks: Former Capital winger has scored at least one point in four consecutive games.

Todd Krygier had the unmistakable look of a man who had seen the playoffs pass his team by.

He admitted it was difficult to turn his attention away from the disappointment of Sunday’s elimination and simply play a game Monday. But he managed, turning in another strong game for the Mighty Ducks.

Later, Krygier attempted to put his feelings into words. It wasn’t easy, but eventually he gave a sense of what falling short of the playoffs meant to him.

“Emotionally, this was one of the toughest games I’ve had to play,” Krygier said after the Ducks’ 5-3 loss to St. Louis at The Pond. “Knowing you’re not going to the playoffs, you want to work hard and perform but . . . I didn’t realize how hard it would be to not make the playoffs.”

He could take a great deal of pride in his game Monday, and indeed in all 34 he has played for the Ducks. Against the Blues, he scored the Ducks’ third goal, which pulled them into a short-lived tie at 3-3 in the third period and assisted on Paul Kariya’s second-period goal that gave them a 2-1 lead.

It marked the fourth consecutive game he has recorded at least one point. He had the Ducks’ only goal in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Kings, the loss that eliminated the Ducks from the playoffs.

Monday’s goal was his 11th, second-best on the team behind only Kariya.

Not bad for a man who had little more to look forward to than nights in the press box when he began the season as a Washington Capital. Thankfully for Krygier, the Ducks needed him and sent Washington a fourth-round pick in the 1996 draft in a Feb. 2 trade.

With the playoffs a moot point Monday, Krygier turned his focus toward again proving Washington wrong for giving up on him.

“Personally, I wanted to show I could play, that I didn’t deserve to sit on the bench the past three years,” he said. “But I have to prove it next game and continue to do so next season.”

Thoughts of next season, and the promise of continued improvement for the Ducks seemed to lift Krygier’s spirits. But he cautioned against expecting too much.

“It’s not just going to happen,” he said. “You have to work and make it happen. As long as you work and improve there is a bright future.

“Next year, we have to establish an identity. Whether if it’s as a good forechecking team . . . We have to build an identity. Granted a lot of guys are rookies, but going into next year some mistakes aren’t going to be tolerable.”

Such as?

“We can’t afford to lose the puck in the neutral zone,” he explained. “You win by scoring down low not by carrying the puck across the blue line all the time. The biggest thing is we’ve got to learn from our mistakes.”