Finnish Line Is Starting Point as Anaheim Guns for First Playoff Berth

Last season’s stirring finish is long over, but the Finnish Line is still ahead.

The Mighty Ducks’ impressive stretch run won them nothing more than the distinction of being the best team in the NHL whose season ended in April. It didn’t help that the Florida Panthers’ season didn’t end until June, when the Ducks’ expansion companions lost to Colorado in the Stanley Cup finals.

Paul Kariya’s dash to 50 goals and Teemu Selanne’s flash couldn’t make up for a poor first half, and the Ducks failed to make the playoffs despite having the fourth-best record in the NHL after February. Only Detroit, Philadelphia and Boston were better than the Ducks, who went 12-4-3 down the stretch.

Not many teams had a better scoring tandem than Kariya and Selanne, either. The only other teams with two players among the NHL’s top 10 scorers were Pittsburgh, which had three in Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Ron Francis, and Stanley Cup champion Colorado with Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg.

The Ducks added Jari Kurri in the off-season, pairing Selanne with his boyhood idol from Finland. So what’s to keep them from picking up where they left off?

Uncertainty about the status of Kariya, first and foremost.

The team’s 21-year-old captain is still working on a tedious two-month rehabilitation from an abdominal injury and the Ducks are resigned to starting the season without him tonight in Toronto.

Kariya confirmed Friday he won’t play tonight, and exactly when he will is uncertain. The gut feeling of those around the team is it will be a week or two.

“You try to start where you left off, but it’s tough when Paul’s not in the lineup,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “He’s our cornerstone, and that’s pretty difficult when you take somebody who scored 108 points, a 50-goal scorer, out of your lineup.”

Kariya is willing to play with pain. He proved that last season when he finished a crucial late-season game with exposed dental nerves after getting a handful of teeth knocked out.

But the holdup in this case isn’t pain. It’s concern that coming back too soon could aggravate the injury.

“I want to be there for the long haul,” Kariya said. “Not come back for a game and then have problems the rest of the year.”

So the line combination of Kariya, Kurri and Selanne--all 100-point scorers, though Kurri hasn’t reached that mark since 1989--will have to wait. For now, winger Joe Sacco is joining Selanne and Kurri, who at 36 feels rejuvenated by the Ducks.

“These guys? I’m back to 20,” said Kurri, traded from the Kings to the Rangers last season and signed by the Ducks during the summer. “Last year with the Kings, the atmosphere wasn’t really good. We didn’t know what direction the team was going to go in. Here, you get to worry about playing hockey and nothing else.”

Selanne, 26, tied Kariya for seventh in scoring with 108 points last season--including 36 points in 28 games after the Feb. 7 trade from Winnipeg to Anaheim that was the catalyst for the Ducks’ finish.

Recovered from injuries to his knees and Achilles’ tendon, Selanne is primed for the season after getting a jump start in the World Cup of Hockey.

“It’s the first time in the last two years I’ve been this healthy,” he said. “I’m expecting to have a very good year.”

One problem is that the Ducks’ offensive production drops off precipitously after Kariya and Selanne, and Kurri is coming off his least productive season.

Roman Oksiuta was the Ducks’ only other 20-goal scorer last season, and he scored 16 of his 23 goals with Vancouver before he was traded to the Ducks in March. Picking up former King Kevin Todd on waivers from Pittsburgh on Friday should help a bit, but the shallow list of scorers is one reason Wilson probably won’t keep Kariya, Kurri and Selanne together all the time, once Kariya returns. Instead, he’ll spread the wealth, hoping to get production from two or three lines, not just one.

Also questionable is the defense, which is in the midst of a youth movement, with only two players in the top seven who have played 225 NHL games, Fredrik Olausson and Bobby Dollas. There are three rookies in the top seven--Jason Marshall, Darren Van Impe and Ruslan Salei--although Marshall and Van Impe were in the lineup at the end of last season.

All this means the Ducks probably will once again need to count on goaltending, and Guy Hebert seems on the verge of consistency. One thing is certain: When he’s good, he’s close to spectacular. Hebert had a 1.99 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage over the final 17 games, and a 2.83 goals-against and .914 save percentage for the season.

“I don’t know if you can start off exactly the way you finished,” Hebert said. “I think that was just a sign of what this team can do. We were in pressure situations every night. I think we want--not to put the same type pressure on--but to have that thought in our head right away, so that maybe at the end of this season we won’t have to go through what we did last season if we start out a little stronger and more focused.”

Still, it’s going to be hard to feel confident until they get Kariya back.

“When he comes back, he comes back. It’s simple,” Wilson said. “I can’t lose any sleep over it. I want Paul at 100%, not at 90% or 85%. I don’t want in any way to put Paul in a precarious position because we need him at the end of the season. . . .

“I’m just going to expect us to play a little more sound game on defense, which we’re capable of.

“Last year, the last month, we were only giving up around two goals a game. That’s what we’re going to have to do--and hope that we score three.”

They might need a boost from a player such as Sacco, a hot-and-cold scorer whose “hot” is usually in the second half of the season.

He and the rest of the Ducks would do well to get hot before the final two months this time around.