Ducks Fold Before They Can Dream

Two minutes and 44 seconds into the Mighty Ducks’ new season, the Mighty Ducks led the Winnipeg Jets, 2-0.

Where does that one rank in the Improbable Sentence Top 30?

Just above “Today, the Mighty Ducks signed Teemu Selanne to a free-agent offer sheet”?

Right below “Today, the Mighty Ducks announced a massive across-the-board slashing of ticket prices, effective immediately”?

You had to blink twice to comprehend it, because if you sneezed twice, you missed it.

Paul Kariya, blast from the right circle, right between the legs of Jet defenseman Stewart Malgunas, at 1:24.

Mike Sillinger, just inside the left post, from Steve Rucchin, on the power play ,] at 2:44.

Back-to-back Duck goals in less than three minutes. Once upon a time, the Ducks needed more than a week to score back-to-back goals. No brag, just fact: In 1994, the Ducks scored on March 4 and needed eight days and more than three games to follow it up. Earlier this year (Feb. 7-17), the Ducks took 10 days and four games to score bookend goals.

But Monday, it was a goal every 82 seconds.

At least through the first 164.

It couldn’t last, not even against Winnipeg, but what about the lead? The game? The victory?

Was that too much to ask?

Yes, if you were to ask that last question 6 minutes and 56 seconds into the Mighty Ducks’ new season. Poor Ducks--they didn’t even get the time to get a half-decent daydream going. All those grandiose visions of 6-1 road victories, 15% power-play efficiency and 10th place in the Western Conference were lost in a cloud of ice shavings, as goals by Darryl Shannon and Darren Turcotte brought the Jets even seven minutes into the first period before goals by Kris King and Igor Korolev pushed them ahead at the finish, 4-3.

“Actually,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said afterward, “I wished we hadn’t started as quickly as we did. It gives a young team a false sense of security.”

Take rookie center Chad Kilger, who was playing his first regular season NHL game. He had no yardstick, no measuring rod for an opening such as this. This is Mighty Duck hockey? Hmmm, Kilger must have thought during those early moments, reminds me an awful lot of Detroit Red Wing hockey.

“We just came out flying,” Kilger said, duly impressed.

Then the 57 minutes that followed, and the final score, crossed Kilger’s mind.

“After that, we were killing a lot of penalties and our flow kind of slowed down,” he said. “It all got away from us.”

Defenseman Milos Holan, playing his 34th NHL game, had it all get away from him twice, for Winnipeg’s third and fourth goals. The third got away when Holan couldn’t keep the puck in at the point and coughed up a 2-on-1 breakaway that enabled King to break a 2-2 tie in the second period. The fourth came and went in the final seven minutes, when Holan violated a cardinal rule of Duck defense and chased Selanne behind the Anaheim net--leaving his man, Korolev, open and free to punch home the winner once Selanne circled Guy Hebert’s backside and fired back across the crease.

“We have a rule: ‘Don’t chase a guy going around the net,’ ” Wilson said. “And on that play, we had two guys [Holan and Sillinger] chasing.”

Holan tried to explain he was “going after the puck,” not Selanne. “I thought I had the puck,” he said, “but I lost it.”

That left Bobby Dollas, alone in front of Hebert, to hold the fort. Selanne behind the net, Korolev poaching the far post, Alexei Zhamnov crashing the net--all Dollas could do was pick a man and hope he guessed right.

Dollas flattened Zhamnov.

One down, but one too many still standing. “I hit the one guy,” Dollas said. “But . . . “

But, the loose puck skittered all the way to Korolev, who had time to aim, squeeze the trigger and put the Ducks out of their misery.

“Growing pains,” was Dollas’ assessment. “That was a great game tonight. [The Jets] have improved their team and we’ve improved our team. There was a whole lot of speed going on out there. It was a lot of fun to watch. It was a lot of fun to play, too.”

The instant 2-0 lead didn’t faze or surprise Dollas, an original Duck who has weathered the great droughts of ‘93, ’94 and ’95.

“This year, with the new [obstruction] rule changes, 2-0 means nothing,” Dollas said. “It really doesn’t. Unless you can kick a field goal. Even when you’re down two goals, the way they let [offensive] players fly now, you’re not out of it.”

Monday night was only the first example. It could have been just another depressing evening at home for the Jets--only 7,856 in a half-filled Winnipeg Arena, hardly an upset now that the civic battle to keep the Jets from leaving in 1996 to Minnesota is over and lost. And that dasher-board advertisement in front of the visiting bench--”Winnipeg Allied Moving & Storage.” And that sad slogan painted next to the center circle--”1995-1996 Winnipeg Jets: A Season To Remember.” Remember it because there won’t be another.

Yet the Jets played on, invisible blinkers attached to their helmets, keeping their minds on the here and now, unlike, say, the Anaheim Rams of late 1994.

Dollas watched it all and came away impressed.

“If you’re on the wrong side of Selanne and Zhamnov,” he said, “you’ll be on the wrong side of the scoreboard if you don’t keep up.”

The Ducks, in Dollas’ estimation, kept up, nearly, almost, up until the sour end.

“On the bright side, youth is on our side,” Dollas said.

“I just hope I’m still here when it comes together.”