After Early Struggles, They Relish Playoff Rewards

The Mighty Ducks went from awful to awesome.

From dead last in the NHL to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

From the worst start in franchise history to their first winning season.

From an eight-game losing streak in the fall to a 12-game unbeaten streak in the spring.

“We came back from a situation where a lot of people thought we were dead,” Coach Ron Wilson said.

Only Teemu Selanne’s favorite phrase--with that hint of Finnish still in his English--can really describe the Mighty Ducks’ season.

“For sure, it was unbelievable.”

A Lingering Pain

The medical term is osteitis pubis. For the Ducks, that translated into a 1-8-2 record on the way to the worst start in the team’s four-year history.

Paul Kariya announced in August that he wouldn’t play in the prestigious World Cup because of a slow-healing abdominal injury, but hoped he’d be ready to start the season.

He wasn’t, and his rehabilitation stretched to three months--including the first month of the season. Kariya could hardly bear to watch.

“I was cringing, turning the TV off,” he said. “I couldn’t mentally try to make them score when they weren’t.”

Without the double threat of Kariya and Selanne, the Ducks’ flaws were exposed. Ten times in the first 12 games they gave up four goals or more.

“Paul’s eventually going to come in on his white horse,” Wilson said. “But he’s not there right now.”

Putting the ‘D’ Back in Duck

Fooled by a strong finish the previous season, the Ducks put their confidence in youngsters and didn’t sign a prominent free-agent defenseman during the summer. General Manager Jack Ferreira let Randy Ladouceur retire, then traded Jason York.

The moves were premature, and the Ducks were a shambles.

Rookies Ruslan Salei and Nikolai Tsulygin weren’t ready. Journeyman Adrian Plavsic lasted six games. Darren Van Impe and Jason Marshall survived but sometimes it hurt. The only true veterans were Bobby Dollas and Fredrik Olausson, and Olausson was among the error-prone.

Slowly, Ferreira shored things up. In November, he acquired Dmitri Mironov from Pittsburgh as part of a deal that sent Olausson to the Penguins. In February, with Dave Karpa and Ken Baumgartner injured, he called up minor leaguer Dan Trebil, who proved to be the surprise of the season. Still looking for stability, Ferreira got J.J. Daigneault--now a 700-game veteran--in a February trade with Pittsburgh, and the reconstruction of the defense was complete.

Eight Is Enough

It was the sort of losing streak an expansion team expects in its first year. But the Ducks never lost more than six in a row that season.

The record came in Year 4.

Kariya returned from his injury Oct. 30 against Vancouver, but the Ducks lost again, 6-3, extending the franchise record to eight losses in a row.

They finally ended it on Nov. 1 with a Selanne hat trick and a 4-3 victory over San Jose.

Selanne was sober-faced.

“We still have won only two games this season,” he said.

By Nov. 24, they had won only six--but No. 6 was a big one, a 3-1 victory over Detroit. It was the Ducks’ first against the Red Wings in 13 tries, and it gave them their first winning streak of the season: two games. They won five of six in the next stretch and emerged from last place in the Western Conference.

Rucchin Roulette

Jari Kurri got a chance to center the highest-scoring line in the NHL. So did Kevin Todd and Ted Drury.

It was Steve Rucchin who won big, centering Selanne--who finished with 109 points--and Kariya (99).

In early November, Rucchin had only one assist in 12 games and wasn’t doing much defensively, so Wilson took him out of the lineup. Three games in a row, and the message was loud and clear. When Rucchin came back, he got one more chance with Kariya and Selanne and made the most of it, becoming a point-a-game player the rest of the season. Once a longshot even to make the NHL after being picked in the supplemental draft in 1993, Rucchin is the $325,000 player between two $2 Million Dollar Men--Kariya and Selanne. With 67 points, he would be the leading scorer on a handful of NHL teams.

“It’s not really my line. It’s their line,” Rucchin said. But his size and the way he plays frees Kariya and Selanne to do what they do best.

The Goalie Guru

The biggest acquisition of the season might not have been Mironov or Daigneault or Brian Bellows, but goaltending consultant Francois Allaire, who counseled Patrick Roy for years in Montreal.

Guy Hebert was one of the sharpest goalies in the NHL late last season. But when Allaire arrived in October, he was giving up more than five goals a game, inexplicably in a funk.

“When they told us we had hired him, that was the best news I could have gotten,” Hebert said. “He’s a legend among goalies in the NHL.”

Allaire helped Hebert find his hot hand again, encouraging him to position himself so efficiently that he made his saves look easy instead of difficult.

And when the Ducks needed Hebert most, he was at his best, starting 42 of 43 games. Over the last 50-odd games, he has given up fewer than 2 1/2 goals a game and stopped nearly 93% of the shots he faced.

“Guy’s even better right now than he was last year at the end,” Wilson said.

An Assist From the Kings

The Ducks called it humiliating, a slap in the face.

The Kings were on a seven-game winless streak and had the worst record in the NHL, and on Feb. 20 at the Forum, they manhandled the Ducks, 3-1.

The next day, the Ducks’ team meeting lasted nearly a half-hour.

“There was no tongue-lashing. We knew what kind of performance it was,” Rucchin said.

It was time to stop this win-one, lose-one business. The Ducks were still seven games under .500, and that wouldn’t get them to the playoffs.

“We get a win and we think we’re God’s gift to hockey,” Kariya, the captain, told his teammates. “To get on a roll like we did last year, we have to work even harder after a win. . . . They’re cliches, but we have to play every game like it’s our last.”

The Streak

When it began, the Ducks were looking up at the top eight in the standings. When it ended after a 7-0-5 run, they only had to hold onto the playoff spot they had earned.

It began with victories over Phoenix and Vancouver, a tie against Edmonton. Then the almost unheard of, an unbeaten trip with a victory over Washington and a tie in Detroit.

On March 9, when the streak figured to end in Colorado, Kariya scored eight seconds into a game that proved to be a furious exhibition of speed and goaltending. With three minutes left and the Ducks trailing, 2-1, on a five-on-three power play, Selanne scored the tying goal. A 2-2 game. The streak lived.

Three days later in Anaheim, the Ducks broke Detroit’s 11-game unbeaten streak, 2-1. Hebert made 38 saves and Kurri scored the game-winner, the 594th goal of his career.

Colorado ended the streak March 21 in Denver, beating the Ducks, 4-3. But in one month, the Ducks had claimed 19 points--more than they did in the first two months of the season.

Can Anyone Here Still Dream?

Two games into a grueling trip, things started to fall apart. In Edmonton, Hebert all but collapsed from overwork. Selanne skated off later, unable to play because of a strained muscle near his ribs that would cost him four games. The Ducks lost their next two, with Chicago and Detroit still ahead.

But on the way to the rink in Chicago, Wilson saw a little girl daydreaming from her fourth-story window. Remember why you play the game, he told his players. Find the kid in you who pretended it was the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals. Look how close you are.

Against the Blackhawks, a rookie playing in his first NHL game, Mike Leclerc, scored the winning goal in a 4-3 victory. In Detroit, backup goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov turned away every shot until Rucchin scored in overtime for a 1-0 victory.

Mathematically, the Ducks hadn’t clinched a playoff spot. Psychologically, they had.

“You think about being that kid who stayed on the rink five or six hours, and your parents had to drag you off. . . . “ Kariya said.

The regular season has ended, and for the first time in their history, the Ducks are still at the rink. Who will drag them off now?

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From the Back to Lead Pack

Since starting a 12-game unbeaten streak on Feb. 22, the Mighty Ducks have the top record in the Western Conference:

Through Feb. 21

*--*

1. Colorado 37 14 8 82 2. Dallas 35 22 4 74 3. Detroit 28 19 11 67 4. Edmonton 29 26 6 64 5. St. Louis 28 26 7 63 6. Phoenix 27 28 4 58 7. Vancouver 27 29 2 56 7. Chicago 24 28 8 56 9. Calgary 24 30 7 55 10. Mighty Ducks 23 30 6 52 11. Kings 20 33 8 48 11. San Jose 21 32 6 48 13. Toronto 22 36 2 46

*--*

Since Feb. 22

*--*

1. Mighty Ducks 13 3 7 33 2. Dallas 13 3 4 30 3. Detroit 10 6 7 27 4. Colorado 12 9 1 25 4. Phoenix 11 9 3 25 6. Chicago 9 7 5 23 7. Toronto 7 8 6 20 8. Vancouver 7 11 5 19 9. Calgary 8 10 2 18 9. St. Louis 7 9 4 18 11. Edmonton 7 10 3 17 12. Kings 6 10 3 15 13. San Jose 6 14 2 14

*--*