Ducks Given Ugly Glimpse of the Future

The giddy intoxication of the Mighty Ducks’ seven-game unbeaten streak subsided a bit Monday after a 5-1 loss to Detroit brought on this sobering reminder: The Red Wings are the prize the Ducks have been fighting to gain.

Three seasons into their existence, the Ducks are 0-9-2 against Detroit, and if they claim the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot, they will be sentenced to at least four games against Detroit’s dizzying array of speed and skill in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Say, how far are the Ducks out of seventh place?

They would much rather face Colorado, a team they have beaten three times this season. Besides, Colorado is another team that has been dominated by the Red Wings, who beat the Avalanche, 7-0, last week.

Of course, just about every team in the NHL has been dominated by the Red Wings, who extended their unbeaten streak to 11 games, longest in the NHL this season.

“I’m not so naive to think we were going to come in and push the Detroit Red Wings around, especially after what they did to Colorado last week,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “[Detroit] is the best team in the league by a country mile. Obviously, we’d love to catch [seventh-place] Toronto and play a team we’ve had success against. But we’d have to face Detroit eventually.”

As it is, the Ducks remain tied for eighth with idle Winnipeg, five points behind Toronto.

“You’re not going to let this set you back,” winger Garry Valk said. “Ron came right in after the game and said, ‘Keep your heads up. This is not even a speed bump on the way to our goal.’ ”

Defenseman Bobby Dollas agreed.

“Let’s face it: This team is the creme de la creme of the league,” Dollas said. “If you would have told us we’d have five out of a possible eight points on this road trip, we’d have said, ‘That’s pretty good.’ We were looking to get five or six the whole trip. Now we have Dallas, a team below us, and San Jose, a team below us. Those are really big games.”

The Ducks, who were playing their third game in four nights, lost for the first time since a 3-1 loss to Dallas on March 5.

The Red Wings led, 2-0, after scoring two goals on deflected shots in the first and were ahead, 5-0, before Anatoli Semenov ended Mike Vernon’s shutout bid with 1:28 left in the second period.

The Ducks’ Teemu Selanne picked up an assist on Semenov’s goal, becoming the first player in the Ducks’ brief history to have a 100-point season. Selanne becoming one of eight NHL players to reach the mark so far this season.

Selanne and Paul Kariya have been burning other teams with their speed, but they met their match in the Detroit skaters--first and foremost Sergei Fedorov and his Russian compatriots. Fedorov led Detroit with a goal and an assist.

“Those guys are unbelievable. They play so well together and have so much speed,” Selanne said. “They read each other on the ice so well, especially the Russian line. If we meet them in the playoffs--when we meet them in the playoffs, I’m sure we’ll find a way to stop the Russian line. Right now, we don’t have a plan to stop them.”

The Ducks’ Guy Hebert started in goal for the eighth game in a row, but Wilson pulled him 3:27 into the second period after Detroit went ahead, 3-0, deciding to get Hebert some rest and give Mikhail Shtalenkov his first work in three weeks.

Hebert was the backbone of the Ducks’ streak, with a 1.28 goals-against average and a .964 save percentage over the previous seven games. Wilson wants him as sharp for the final nine games of the season--and perhaps beyond.

“We’ve just got to use this as a learning experience and go from there,” Wilson said. “They’ve got such speed. The last couple of weeks, everybody we’ve played with the exception of Colorado we’ve been able to outskate. We couldn’t outskate this team.”

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Duck Notes

Center Shaun Van Allen was a healthy scratch for the third consecutive game, pushed out of the lineup by the arrival of Anatoli Semenov. Steve Rucchin, J.F. Jomphe and Alex Hicks are playing ahead of him. Defenseman Randy Ladouceur, who is 35 and in the final year of his contract, hasn’t played in the past seven games.