Ducks Stick a 2-1 Loss on Avalanche’s Pillow

Was that the last resort for the Colorado Avalanche?

They lost to the Mighty Ducks in November after a relaxing stay at a Rancho Santa Fe resort. Wednesday night, they lost to the Ducks, 2-1, at the Pond of Anaheim after being ensconced at a luxury hotel in Laguna Beach for four days.

Maybe next time it should be the Motel 6.

Colorado is a superior team, but the Avalanche lost to an unusually determined group of Ducks. For one night, it didn’t seem to matter that Colorado has the second-best offense in the NHL and the league’s fourth-ranked power play, while the Ducks have a laggard offense and the league’s worst power play.

“The way I look at it, most of the teams that we are chasing are going to lose to Colorado,” the Ducks’ Paul Kariya said. “We picked up two points. A win like this can get us going.”

The game was scoreless until late in the second period, when Kariya made a spectacular play to set up David Karpa for a short-handed goal.

The lead was 2-0 with 11 minutes left in the game after a spate of Colorado penalties put three Avalanche players in the box and gave the Ducks a two-man advantage. Kariya’s goal at 8:59 of the third--his 27th of the season--gave the Ducks a cushion, but not for long.

Guy Hebert, making his club-record 13th consecutive start, outplayed Colorado’s Patrick Roy. He lost the shutout at 12:08 of the final period when Joe Sakic scored his 32nd goal of the season on a fairly harmless-looking shot as he skated in on the left wing.

Hebert finished with 39 saves, but if he could have stopped Sakic, he could have handed the Avalanche only their second shutout of the season.

Plenty of credit had to go to Kariya, who likes to say he wants to play the game of hockey the way Magic Johnson plays basketball. He made Sakic look almost as lost as Latrell Sprewell did on Magic’s fake at the Forum on Tuesday night.

With Colorado on a power play, Kariya sprinted across the blue line, shoved the puck past Sakic and then cut behind him to pick up his own pass, leaving Sakic hung out to dry.

That left Kariya with a two-on-one, and he let Colorado defenseman Adam Foote slide by face-first trying to block the pass before feeding a wide-open Karpa.

“I’m pretty good friends with Joe Sakic,” Kariya said, “and we were talking at the All-Star game about how many short-handed chances they give up. I was bugging him that if I got the chance I was coming at him.”

Karpa, no offensive wizard, wisely held the puck, gathered himself, and beat Roy just under the crossbar with 1:16 left in the second.

“He made a fantastic play,” Kariya said. “It was a goal-scorer’s play. He waited for Patrick to go down and popped it upstairs.”

Duck Notes

Defenseman Don McSween is still waiting for his chance to crack the lineup after returning from minor league Baltimore. “I’m getting anxious, but they’ve been so patient with me, so I’ve got to be patient with them,” said McSween, who suffered severe nerve damage in his right hand more than a year ago when he was cut by a skate blade. “When it’s best for the team for me to get a chance, I’ll be ready.” . . . Defenseman Milos Holan has not yet received a schedule for the bone-marrow transplant he needs to treat his leukemia. Doctors are still completing donor arrangements. Holan left the team in early January to prepare physically and emotionally for the procedure.