Ducks Revert to Form

Teemu Selanne scored a goal for the Mighty Ducks. No one else did and they were hammered by the Calgary Flames, 6-1, in front of 16,219 Sunday at the Canadian Airlines Saddledome.

So what else is new?

The Ducks also were disorganized on defense, failing to make the intelligent plays to avoid trouble in their end.

Nothing unfamiliar about that one either.

This is getting to be routine stuff for the Ducks, whose recent pattern of one step forward and one step back was never more apparent than this weekend.

One night after playing one of their best all-around games of the season in defeating Edmonton, 2-1, the Ducks reverted to form against Calgary.

All that stuff about maintaining sound defensive positioning and peppering the opposing goaltender with shots went out the window in a dreadful final two minutes of the first period.

Calgary’s Robert Reichel scored the game’s first goal at the 18:29 mark of the first period and Jarome Iginla added the back-breaker 33 seconds later.

Reichel’s goal, on a blast from just inside the blue line, came after a Duck giveaway in the neutral zone. Iginla scored because the defense ignored him as he stood mere feet in front of goalie Guy Hebert.

Game over.

“Two goals in the last minutes of a period is unacceptable,” Hebert said. “It’s how you lose games. It’s how you lose a chance to go to the playoffs.”

The Ducks and Flames are locked in a tie for ninth place with 48 points, two points and one place out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Ducks gave up two goals in the second period, then two more in the third en route to their most lopsided loss of the season. They had lost three times by four-goal margins, but never by five.

Selanne’s team-leading 32nd goal of the season was all the offense the Ducks could muster. They were outshot, 37-25.

Without additional offense, the Ducks lost for the fourth time in the past five games. In that span, the Ducks scored 10 goals. Selanne had three, Paul Kariya three and the rest of the team four.

“I think the frustration level is getting high for a lot of players,” said Brian Bellows, held without a goal for the fifth consecutive game. “You just start wondering what you’ve got to do to score. You’re trying to do anything to create a goal. You’ve got to stick with what works.”

Coach Ron Wilson stayed with his revamped lines for the second consecutive game, but nothing clicked. Bellows played with Kariya and Steve Rucchin and Selanne played with Jari Kurri and Roman Oksiuta.

Kurri had several quality chances in the first period, but misfired badly each time.

“You’ve got to bag those, it’s as simple as that,” said Kurri, whose last goal was Jan. 22. “It was really frustrating. There was no flow out there. I can’t seem to get anything going.”

With the Ducks down, 4-0, late in the second period, Wilson at last reunited Kariya, Selanne and Rucchin.

Finally, Selanne ended Trevor Kidd’s shutout bid with a goal at the 3:20 mark of the third period. But the Ducks trailed, 4-1, by then and held little hope for a comeback.

“We were never really in it,” Kariya said. “The whole game we were totally lackadaisical. It was probably because we played [Saturday]. But we’re paid to play. We can’t use that as an excuse.”

It might be one thing if all the Ducks had to worry about was their punch-less goal-scoring aside from Selanne and Kariya. But the same defensive lapses that produced losses to the Colorado Avalanche, New York Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs last week cropped up again Sunday.

Wilson spent most of Friday’s practice hammering away at the notion that the Ducks need to play more conservatively in their end. His plan worked fine for three periods and overtime against Edmonton and for much of the first 20 minutes against Calgary.

But the Ducks chucked that routine in the final minutes of the first period and suffered the consequences.