Mighty Ducks Come Up Flat, Lose to Improving Whalers

The Hartford Whalers haven’t made any more appearances in the Stanley Cup playoffs than the Mighty Ducks have the past three seasons.

And of course, one of those seasons, the Ducks didn’t exist.

That doesn’t mean the Whalers don’t deserve any respect, and the Ducks, of all teams, should know that. Nevertheless, they lost to Hartford, 4-3, Friday night at the Pond in a performance that lacked the purposeful intensity the Ducks showed in a victory Wednesday over Colorado.

“We didn’t respect Hartford,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said as he groped for answers. “I guess I didn’t get the message across. . . . If the message is that the other team is deserving of respect, then it’s my fault we didn’t respect them.”

Hartford has played well enough the past month to draw some attention, going 8-4-1 during January in the team’s first winning month since the 1991-92 season, the last season the Whalers made the playoffs.

The Whalers are 10th in the Eastern Conference and the Ducks are 11th in the Western Conference as both teams try to crack the top eight. It was exactly the sort of matchup a playoff-hungry team should win, and the Ducks didn’t.

“It’s frustrating,” Wilson said. “We scored to go up, 3-2. I don’t know why we lost our intensity for three or four minutes, but we ended up losing because of it. Three turnovers in our own end ended up being goals.”

The Ducks had won three of their last five games, but started the game poorly, giving up a goal only 32 seconds after the opening faceoff. Goalie Guy Hebert, who was nowhere near as sharp as he has been recently, never saw Glen Wesley’s high floater through traffic.

Hartford led, 1-0, but the damage was quickly undone by Joe Sacco, who rifled a shot past Hartford goalie Sean Burke only 34 seconds later.

But Hartford took another lead when Geoff Sanderson jumped on a loose rebound and scored the game’s third goal with only 3:02 gone. The Ducks went in tied, 2-2, at the first intermission after Steve Rucchin was credited with a power-play goal with seven seconds left in the first.

There were three more goals in the second period. Anaheim took a 3-2 lead when Valeri Karpov scored off a three-on-one counterattack, but the Whalers scored the next two to take a 4-3 lead into the final period.

Andrew Cassels’ goal at 15:23 of the second was reviewed, but video replays showed his stick was below shoulder-height when he scored. Nelson Emerson scored the go-ahead goal at 17:52 of the second when he took a pass from Brendan Shanahan, waited for Hebert to go down, and then put the puck into the net.

The third period was uneventful, with Hartford outshooting the Ducks by a meager seven shots to five. The Whalers held on by holding off the Ducks in the final 37 seconds after Wilson pulled Hebert for an extra attacker.

“We’re only five points out,” center Shaun Van Allen said. “There’s still 31 games left to turn this thing on. Last year we had a good second half. Hopefully we’ll get a winning streak going here.”

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Duck Notes

Linesman Baron Parker suffered a mild concussion after colliding with the Ducks’ Paul Kariya late in the second period and was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Orange for precautionary X-rays. Though Parker left the ice on a stretcher with his neck immobilized, doctors who examined him afterward said he was in no danger. Kariya had just missed on a breakaway when he curled toward the corner behind the Hartford net and hit Parker, leading to a 10-minute delay. . . . Center David Sacco didn’t play because of a lingering right-shoulder strain. He was injured against Vancouver last week but was able to play the next two games. He was replaced in the lineup by rookie Chad Kilger, who had been a healthy scratch the previous three games.

The Ducks wore their alternate jerseys again and are 0-2 in them after losing to the Kings in their debut last week. . . . Official attendance was 17,174.