Mighty Ducks’ Feathers Ruffled by Rangers, 5-1

The Mighty Ducks’ strange domination of the New York Rangers is over after a 5-1 loss Monday night at Madison Square Garden.

There were probably plenty among the crowd of 18,200 who had never felt they could properly jeer the Ducks--because until Monday, the Rangers had never beaten them. The Ducks swept the season series during the Rangers’ Stanley Cup championship season in 1993-94, and won, 7-4, last month in Anaheim.

This time the Rangers caught the Ducks struggling with injuries and handed them a loss that extended their winless streak to six games. Though they have tied two games, the Ducks haven’t won since beating Calgary on Nov. 21.

The Rangers have been on a dominating streak at home, where they haven’t lost in their last 10 games, and Mark Messier has been one of the leaders. He had a goal and two assists Monday, scoring the 1,400th point of his career when he assisted Adam Graves on the first goal of the game.

The Rangers didn’t put the game away until the third period, as Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov held them in check, 2-1, through two periods and finished with a career-high 39 saves. But the Rangers scored three goals in the third--one with a two-man advantage, another with a one-man advantage, and the third with 20 seconds left--to turn the game into a blowout.

Shtalenkov was starting a fourth consecutive game even though Guy Hebert has been cleared to play despite a chronically sore ankle.

“Mikhail’s played well, and he deserves to play; it’s that simple,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said.

Shtalenkov made plenty of terrific saves and deserved a better fate than a 5-1 loss. But he faced the Ranger power play for too long in the third.

The Ducks, though, were fixated on the Rangers’ second goal, scored by rookie Darren Langdon at 14:50 of the first. Duck defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky won a race to the puck along the boards and threw it dangerously close to the Duck net, where Shtalenkov moved to cover it. Langdon jammed it into the net without a whistle, though, and Wilson was livid.

“It should have been 1-1. That second goal was not a goal,” he said. “He definitely did cover it up. [Referee Stephen Walkom] made a mistake and he admitted it. He can make as many calls as he wants to try to even it up. It was a mistake and it was not a penalty mistake, it was a goal mistake. [Shtalenkov] had his hand on the puck for almost a whole second. It should have been a whistle, and it shouldn’t have been a goal. It’s that simple.”

Wilson was still so irritated by the call that he cut off his postgame interview session. Shtalenkov didn’t think it should have been a goal either, but allowed that it wasn’t the whole game.

“I heard he said the puck wasn’t under my glove. It’s not true. I think it was his mistake,” Shtalenkov said. “I just covered it, and it was like he didn’t push it under my glove, he had my hand and everything.”

But, Shtalenkov said, “If we see the final result, maybe it doesn’t change anything. At that moment, it was real important for us. Maybe it was a different game if it stayed 1-1. You’ll never know.

“I think . . . we still had a chance to win this game before the third, but it didn’t work out. We had to kill two penalties, the four-on-three and the five-on-three. It was too much time.”