Ducks’ Defense on Holiday

Take the “D” out of Duck, and you’re left with the approximate sentiments of the few fans who remained in the stands at the end of the Mighty Ducks’ 5-1 loss to Boston Sunday at the Pond.

Uck. The Duck defense is a shambles. Only once this season has it held a team to fewer than four goals.

Sunday afternoon, the Ducks gave up another shorthanded goal only two minutes into the game, two days after giving up a club-record three shorthanded goals in a loss to San Jose.

“It was the worst possible thing that could happen,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “It seems we hit a bump in the road and the wheels came off.”

Little more than five minutes into the game, the Bruins were ahead, 2-0, scoring on two of their first three shots and prompting Wilson to pull goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov for Guy Hebert, not so much to fault Shtalenkov but in a futile attempt to “throw a bucket of water on the fire.”

It didn’t work. Boston scored five goals before the end of the second period, and the Ducks left the ice to boos from the crowd of 17,174.

“The crowd gets angry, and deservedly so,” Wilson said. “We’ve got some inexperienced defensemen and a lot of them started to get nervous. We’ve got to stick together, but a lot of guys start harping at each other.”

The Ducks started the season with high hopes, but now they are in disarray, still seeking their second victory of the season after eight games. They have lost four in a row, are 0-3 at home and take a five-game winless streak with them on the road this week to Philadelphia and Hartford.

“When you keep losing, you lose your confidence,” said right wing Teemu Selanne. “If you don’t learn how to win, you are stupid. We are a very stupid hockey team. We can’t say we have bad defensemen or bad goaltending. Everybody has to do their job. But we are doing the same mistakes night after night.”

The Ducks went on a power play only 22 seconds into the game when Selanne was tripped by Don Sweeney near the Bruin net, but the Ducks turned the puck over and Rob DiMaio scored on the other end.

Boston’s lead was 2-0 at 5:15 of the first after the Ducks allowed Trent McCleary to slide down the slot and take a pass from Todd Elik behind the net.

Hebert came in and the Ducks staunched the bleeding for a while. The Ducks even cut the lead to 2-1 at 2:09 of the second when Roman Oksiuta carried the puck over the blue line, skated in close and deftly beat Boston goalie Bill Ranford with a shot just inside the far post.

The Duck defense didn’t hold. Adrian Plavsic, who spent most of last season with Tampa Bay’s minor league team but made the Ducks out of training camp, lost sight of the puck after Ted Donato’s shot and was standing in the slot looking behind him when Adam Oates swept in and put the loose puck in the net 5:21 into the second.

Elik scored at 15:35 of the period, sneaking behind Kevin Todd and rookie defenseman Ruslan Salei while defenseman Bobby Dollas scrambled to try to cover Oates. Former King Rick Tocchet scored his fourth goal of the season when he redirected a pass from Elik at 16:13 of the second for a 5-1 lead.

The defensive errors have been glaring--Wilson called the Ducks passive, intimidated and criticized his team for a “horrendous job” of backchecking.

But the offense has turned anemic too. After managing to score six goals in a game twice even without injured 50-goal scorer Paul Kariya, the Ducks have scored only seven over the past four games.

Wilson split up Selanne and Jari Kurri’s line to start the game, trying to jump start some of the other players. Selanne, who had 10 points in the first four games, has had only one in the last four. By the third period, however, Selanne and Kurri were reunited, looking for any scoring at all.

“I feel sorry for Teemu,” Wilson said. “He was working his rear end off, getting breakaways and getting hauled down.”

Kurri, 36, is the team’s ranking veteran.

“I don’t think there is any magic wand or magic trick,” he said.