Ducks End Up Short on Offense, Defense

That was an offensive game between the Mighty Ducks and the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night, and there wasn’t much debate about which syllable of the word offensive to stress.

The Ducks’ 6-5 loss wasn’t merely high scoring, it was an affront to the senses--and particularly to any purist who had the defensive tradition of the Canadiens in mind.

There were four goals in the first seven minutes of the game, and six in the first period, which ended 3-3.

Not that this was entirely unexpected. Last month, these teams played to an unusual 6-6 tie in Montreal--a dubious feat the Ducks have managed twice this season; the other came against Colorado.

“Any time you allow the other team to score six goals against you, you’re not going to win too many games,” Duck winger Garry Valk said.

Montreal’s Martin Rucinsky scored three goals and the second hat trick of his career helped the Canadiens get their first road victory of the season after six tries.

The Ducks’ Paul Kariya scored two goals--his first of the season, both on third-period power-play slap shots. After scoring 50 goals last season, Kariya missed the first 11 games recovering from an abdominal injury and went three without a goal. Wednesday, he broke his club record with 12 shots on goal and has 37 in four games.

Kariya’s first goal cut the lead to 5-4 5:31 into the third period, but a giveaway by defenseman David Karpa led to Montreal’s sixth goal only 12 seconds later.

“I should have played it up the boards,” said Karpa, whose pass meant for Jari Kurri was intercepted by Rucinsky. “It’s one of those things now, looking back, I know what I should have done. But I put it right on Rucinsky’s stick.”

One of the best Duck plays of the game didn’t come until 1:20 remained, when Coach Ron Wilson challenged Rucinsky’s stick--and won. With Rucinsky in the box for an illegally curved stick--presumably the same one that had produced three goals--the Ducks pulled goalie Guy Hebert 55 seconds left for a six-on-four attack, but couldn’t pull out the tie.

“I noticed [Rucinsky’s stick] halfway through the game,” said Wilson. With a faceoff in the Canadiens’ end with 1:20 to play, Wilson took his calculated gamble, hoping the Ducks would repeat the extra-attacker goal they scored Sunday to tie Colorado. They couldn’t.

The game’s up-and-down, little-or-no resistance tempo figured, considering Montreal and Anaheim each had given up 54 goals already this season, most in the NHL.

“Coming in, we wanted to take care of our own end first, because we knew we’d get plenty of opportunities,” Wilson said.

Montreal goalie Jose Theodore, a 20-year-old who has played the last three games, faced 43 shots, a season high for the Ducks and six short of the Duck record of 49.

Wilson left Hebert in for the duration, despite a bad first goal on a floater from the point by David Wilkie 2 1/2 minutes into the game. Overall, Hebert was far less sharp than in his previous game.

There was at least one positive way of looking at the game: There were so many goals that somebody was bound to break out of a slump. Valk scored his first goal of the season--and first point.

Kurri had the second assist on Valk’s goal--his first point in nine games. Kurri has only two assists in the last 11 games after getting three goals and three assists in the first four games.

There were lots of points to go around Wednesday. Montreal had three players with three points: Rucinsky, Vincent Damphousse and Mark Recchi. The Ducks’ Fredrik Olausson also had three points on three assists.

Saku Koivu, the second-year player from Finland who had been leading the Canadiens in scoring, extended his point streak to seven games with two assists.

The Ducks entered the game unbeaten in their last two games, but they still have won only one of last 11 overall and only two this season.

“We can’t let this set us back,” Karpa said. “I think we have started to make some progress. We’ve got to move forward. Correct this and move on.”