Vancouver Finishes Ducks Off

Follow the bouncing puck? It’s often a chore when the Mighty Ducks take the ice.

If it’s crisp and clean you want from your hockey team, you would have been better served watching someone other than the Ducks in their 1995-96 home opener Wednesday.

On the other hand, the Vancouver Canucks showed how a good team makes its own breaks. Wednesday surely wasn’t the finest moment in Vancouver history, but the Canucks seized their opportunities and made the Ducks pay.

It was quick work.

With the Ducks hanging close, despite flubbing numerous scoring chances, Vancouver awoke to bury the Ducks in the game’s final 7 minutes 7 seconds.

Roman Oksiuta made a beautiful backhand flip to Alexander Mogilny, who was standing by the left post long enough to get arrested for loitering. Mogilny jabbed the puck into the net.

Jeff Brown a few moments later unleased a slap shot from the right point. Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov couldn’t pick out the puck through the tangle of bodies in front of him and it’s in the net.

Mogilny worked his magic again in the final seconds.

Suddenly, a 2-1 game is a 5-1 rout and the Ducks are left to sift through the remains of their fourth loss in five games.

“I don’t know if we got down on ourselves or what at the end,” said Steve Rucchin, who went into the game with four goals and two assists, but was shut out Wednesday. “There’s no excuse for it. It’s really a disgrace.

“We worked hard for parts of the game and at times we didn’t and that’s not our style.”

The Ducks had 37 shots at Vancouver goalie Kirk McLean, not a bad number considering they don’t have a player with the offensive skills of Mogilny or Pavel Bure.

What they count on is hard work and a bit of luck. They only got part of one and almost none of the other, and it was not a winning combination.

In the end, all the Ducks had to show for those 37 shots was Paul Kariya’s team-leading fifth goal and a dose of frustration.

“We’re just not good enough to not capitalize on the other team’s mistakes,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “We’ve got a lot of young guys and we looked a little jittery in front of the net. We didn’t bury our chances early.”

Mostly the Ducks seemed to be squeezing their sticks into sawdust.

“We were a little tight,” Wilson said. “You’ve got to be intense, but relaxed enough to score.”

So the Ducks resorted to merely whacking at the puck as it fluttered around in front of McLean. At one point midway through the pivotal third period, Peter Douris had three pokes at a loose puck at point-blank range, but couldn’t bat it home. Mike Sillinger was nearby but couldn’t score either.

“We got a little too close and we were at the end of a shift and just couldn’t poke it in,” Wilson said of the missed chances at tying the score at 2-2.

A few minutes later, the contrast between mere scoring chances and goals became apparent.

“Leave him open,” Vancouver Coach Rick Ley said of Mogilny, “we get somebody to get him the puck and he’s going to put it in.”

Said Wilson: “Last time I looked, that’s the team everyone’s picked to win the Western Conference.”

And what of the 1-4 Ducks, who face one of the leading contenders to win the Eastern Conference, the Philadelphia Flyers, Friday?

“We’ve got to finish off our opportunities, and tonight we didn’t,” Wilson said.