Priorities Win as Ducks Lose to Calgary

Those were the old Mighty Ducks on Friday night--the Teemu Selanne-less Ducks.

With their new star home in Winnipeg for the birth of his first child, the Ducks lost to the Calgary Flames at the Saddledome, 3-2, then bit their tongues on the what-ifs.

“That’s an excuse,” center Shaun Van Allen said. “The first year, we didn’t have Paul Kariya, we didn’t have Teemu. We still won 33 games, 19 on the road.”

They’ve won 21 games this season with 22 to go.

Selanne’s baby, a boy, was born early Friday, and he’ll return for the Ducks’ game Sunday afternoon at the Pond against San Jose.

That’s another big game for the Ducks, who are lurking around the playoff race but fell to five points out of the last spot Friday and have three teams to pass. One of them, though, is the Kings, who aren’t exactly sprinting toward the finish.

The Ducks played a hard-fought game but lost to the Flames after Theoren Fleury scored two third-period goals.

“Calgary is in the same playoff hunt as us,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said of the Flames, who are seventh in the Western Conference. “It was a solid hockey game; we lost by a goal. We’ll get right back to it.”

Fleury, the Flames’ gritty, agitating 5-foot-6 winger, broke a 1-1 tie 4:17 into the third period when he picked up the puck in a neutral-zone scramble after a faceoff and skated in over the blue line to fire a shot on Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov.

Shtalenkov was making his third consecutive start as the Ducks bank on his recent play and go cautiously on Guy Hebert’s sore neck--though Hebert says he can play.

Fleury made the score 3-1 with a power-play goal at 10:19 of the third. German Titov, who broke a scoreless tie 3:12 into the second period, claimed a rebound in front of the net, quickly stick-handled, and sent it to Fleury, wide open at the left post for his 34th goal of the season.

“He’s the best player on their team and he did what the best players do, he scored goals,” Van Allen said. “He’s their character guy. That’s just how he plays, feisty.”

Said Wilson: “It was two teams playing hard. Their great hockey player scored two goals, and at crunch time Rick Tabaracci made two or three amazing saves on Paul Kariya and Bobby Dollas.”

Tabaracci also kept the Ducks from getting an early lead when he foiled Todd Krygier on a two-on-none in the first period, tipping away the puck with his glove on a frantic save.

Valeri Karpov, scratched for the past three games, scored the Ducks’ first goal on a two-on-one with Kariya at 12:54 of the second.

Kariya gave the Ducks a chance to try to tie after he scored on a power play with 6:36 left in the game, getting his 34th goal of the season and fourth in three games. Kariya has nine goals and 17 points over the last 12 games, and 74 points overall.

But the Ducks’ attempts with an extra attacker were foiled, and they failed to reach overtime for what would have been a third consecutive game.

“The next few games are going to be tough,” Van Allen said. “Then we’re back at home before we go on that long road trip. If we’re going to make a run, I think it’s got to be in the next 10 games.”

*

Duck Notes

Teemu Selanne and his fiancee, Sirpa, named their first child Eemil Ilmari Selanne. “But his first name’s Ron,” quipped Coach Ron Wilson. . . . Center Mike Sillinger, a semi-regular scratch recently, returned to the lineup, replacing David Sacco.

Goalie Guy Hebert said his neck is still sore after being injured last Thursday at Vancouver, but that he could have played. “I’m ready to go. But when a guy’s won two games in a row, it doesn’t matter, at crunch time like this he should go back in there,” he said.