Veteran Ducks Try to Recall Old Tricks : Hockey: Although Valk, Corkum and Sacco have new roles, they do not want to fade out of the team’s offensive picture.

Garry Valk, Bob Corkum and Joe Sacco are on the same line--and in the same boat.

They’re all ready to show they are more the players they appeared to be two seasons ago than the players they appeared to be most of last season.

But their roles, as the Mighty Ducks prepare for Monday’s season-opener at Winnipeg, are no longer the same as they were in the Ducks’ first season (1993-94), when Valk, Corkum and Sacco scored 60 goals combined and Corkum led the team with 23. Now the Ducks look to Paul Kariya’s line first for scoring, and to Valk, Corkum and Sacco for forechecking.

“We have a lot of guys on this team who can put the puck in the net now,” said Corkum, who finished with 10 goals in the shortened season after a slow start when he came back from the lockout out of shape. “They’re not counting on us as much as in the past. Our first responsibility is to take care of our own zone.”

“Our job,” said Valk, “will be to check the other team’s top players. We’ve accepted that role in the past and we accept it now, but that’s not to say we can’t chip in offensively.”

Valk finished with a mere three goals last season after a career-high 18 the previous season. Sacco, who scored 19 goals two seasons ago, finished with 10 last season, but half of them came in one week in March.

“Me, Valk and Corkie are going to try to keep opponents from doing a lot of damage and try to chip in a goal here and there,” Sacco said. “We’ve all had some pretty good years here before, so we know we can put the puck in the net. We all signed new contracts and know they want us here, but we’ve all got something to prove.”

That they do--maybe a little bit more so after the three of them combined for only one goal during the exhibition season.

“I’m not really worried about their scoring, if the other lines carry the load,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “They’re a hard forechecking line, and they are able to really get in and do the job. That’s what gets all three of those going, is forechecking.

“But the guy you have to wonder about is Valk. He never got going last year and hasn’t scored this year. But I don’t want to put pressure on them. They’re not the type of players that score by thinking about scoring. They score when they work hard and forecheck.”

Valk knows that.

“It was first of all the appendix and then the lockout,” said Valk, explaining that the abdominal surgery weakened his muscles. Then he twisted his knee before the season began, missing the first 10 games of the 48-game schedule. He also was waiting for the raise he’d earned after the best year of his career. But the lockout halted contract talks and postponed all arbitration hearings, and Valk’s salary for the 1995 season wasn’t determined until the season was done.

“They were saying, don’t worry about the contract, but I couldn’t help it,” he said. “I had pressure to have at least as good a year as the year before, and the pressure was too much. I was coming off my first really good year. When you’re playing a role position, it isn’t hard to duplicate that. But when I started scoring, it added pressure to do it again.”

He didn’t, and resolved to spend the off-season getting into the best shape of his life, working out with a personal trainer four times a week.

Now he and Corkum and Sacco are banding together on the third line.

“It’s a matter now of not trying too hard,” Valk said.

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Duck Notes

Coach Ron Wilson has named right wing Todd Krygier assistant captain. Randy Ladouceur returns as captain, and assistant captains Bob Corkum and Todd Ewen also return. . . . Ewen is doubtful for Monday’s game after sitting out practice for a week because of a sore groin.