Despite Mighty Effort, Ducks Could Use Help

Ron Wilson entered the final week of the Ducks’ regular season wishing out loud for a week or two more.

“Right now, we’re one of the top five teams in the [Western] conference,” Wilson said before his team began a four-game gantlet that leads to one of two places--the playoffs, in a photo finish, or missed-by-that-much, wallflower-again status.

“It may not show it in the standings, but that’s how we’ve been playing. The calendar and time are the only things going against us.”

In truth, Wilson was probably understating the situation. According to a factoid in Monday’s pregame media notes--brought to you by the Ducks’ intrepid publicity staff, with assists from Kariya, Selanne, Oksiuta and Hebert:

Anaheim and Detroit have accumulated the most points in the Western Conference since March 1. A look at the top records in the West since March 1:

Anaheim--9-3-3, 21 points

Detroit--9-2-3, 21 points

Colorado--10-6-0, 20 points

Make that Anaheim--10-3-3, 23 points after Monday’s 2-0 victory over Vancouver at the Pond, which extended the Ducks’ current unbeaten streak to five games (4-0-1) and left them 9-1-2 in their last dozen home games.

If the Ducks don’t make the playoffs, they’ll have no one to blame but St. Louis and Edmonton, which both blew leads Monday to seventh-place Winnipeg and eighth-place Calgary.

Winnipeg, which began the night three points ahead of the Ducks, escaped all-but-certain defeat in St. Louis when the ironically named Dallas Drake buried the tying goal with five seconds left in regulation. Headline this one: Ducks Betrayed By Drake, 2-2.

Calgary, also three points up on the Ducks before a puck was dropped, fell two goals behind Edmonton in the first period, but kept chipping away until Zarley Zalapski’s third-period goal put the Flames ahead to stay, 3-2.

“Nobody helps us,” surmised a laconic Roman Oksiuta, whose postgame mood should have been brighter, given the second-period goal he struck against his old Vancouver teammates.

But Roman was right. Calgary failed the Ducks on Saturday by failing to put away Winnipeg and St. Louis and Edmonton let them down on Monday--St. Louis agonizingly, sadistically in the final five seconds.

Someone asked Wilson if he had heard that Drake’s tying goal had come five ticks before the horn.

“Jack [Ferreira, Ducks general manager] just told me that,” Wilson said. “That would’ve depressed me more. If I’d have known that . . . I’m surprised that they didn’t put that on the board in a flash of bright lights so we could see it.”

Wilson has a become an out-of-town results junkie. He admits he gets his nightly fix by way of an electronic sports-ticker paging device.

“I got a beeper right here,” Wilson revealed to a group of reporters. “I’m not doing it during play--I’m not peeking at it, going, ‘What the hell’s going on? Uh, guys, we’ve got to score another one.’

“I keep it back in my office. I run back there and go, ‘Awwww.’ ”

Then he returns, doing his best to keep the chin jutted and the upper lip stiffened.

“It’s all right to be depressed, but you have to put on a good face for the players,” Wilson explained.

So Wilson suffers in silence as his Ducks run off the best record in the league since March 1, yet awake on the morn of April 9 ninth-best in the Western Conference.

With three games left on the schedule, the race for the last five spots in the Western Conference playoffs looks like this:

St. Louis--79 points, two games left.; Toronto--78 points, two games left.; Calgary--77 points, three games left.; Vancouver--77 points, one game left.; Winnipeg--76 points, three games left.; Ducks--74 points, three games left.

If the Ducks win them all, they’re in, help or no help at all.

Keep on pluggin’ and never mind the out-of-town scores--if the Ducks need a battle cry to sustain them through these last three must-wins, there it is.

Or, according to the Roman mathematical method: “You get two points every game, we make the playoffs.”

Simple, right?

Just beat 100-point Colorado in its own building Wednesday night and end a nine-game losing streak against Dallas Friday night and gun down Winnipeg on the finale Sunday of the season, that’s all.

On a more hopeful note, Ducks goaltender Guy Hebert observes that “We’re finally peaking at the right time. We’re just a team that won’t go away.”

Got to keep it up for six more days.

“We can take care of our own business,” Wilson asserted. “We can win our next three and we’ll be OK.”

Teemu Selanne added, “We know if we can keep playing this well, we’re going to win a lot of games.”

As long as the Ducks don’t run out of games first.