Ducks Brighten Chicago Outlook

The Chicago Blackhawks had the league’s worst power play, a winless starting goalie, a goal-less superstar and two measly victories on the road.

So what happened against the Mighty Ducks on Wednesday at the Pond? All that ailed the Blackhawks appeared to be cured in 60 minutes of sound, if unspectacular hockey.

Final score: Chicago 4, Ducks 0.

Chicago scored a power-play goal by Gary Suter to seal the victory in the third period. Jeff Hackett, pressed into service because starting goaltender Chris Terreri is out one month because of a broken finger, recorded a shutout in improving to 1-3-2. Defenseman Chris Chelios scored his first goal of the season.

And Chicago won for only the third time on the road.

The Ducks simply got it all wrong again in getting shut out for the second time in three games.

Their winless streak is at six games (0-5-1) and their losing streak stands at three. Next, a two-game trip to play Central Division powers St. Louis on Saturday and Dallas on Monday.

Wait, it gets worse.

Teemu Selanne, the NHL’s leading scorer with 20 goals, was held without a goal or an assist for the third consecutive game.

Selanne’s cold streak, which can be attributed to opponents’ increased defensive pressure against him, has spread through the lineup like wildfire.

The Ducks have scored a grand total of two goals in three games--both on power plays in Tuesday’s 4-2 loss against the San Jose Sharks.

Their start seemed perfectly acceptable Wednesday, far better than against San Jose. It was a shoddy offensive effort in the second period that did them in this time.

They pressured the Blackhawks, hit them and outshot them, 11-9, in the first 20 minutes. But they seemed incapable of duplicating their solid first-period play in the second period.

Forget scoring chances. The Ducks had difficulty merely getting the puck out of their own zone as the Blackhawks tightened their defensive pressure.

Two goals in the first 13 minutes of the second period also helped Chicago adopt a more defensive posture.

Alexei Zhamnov scored first, taking advantage of a coverage mistake by the Ducks to score his third goal of the season.

Three Ducks went to cover Chicago’s Brian Felsner along the right-wing boards. He smartly passed to Eric Daze in the corner. Daze skated along the goal line and slipped a pass out front to Zhamnov, who scored at the 3:14 mark.

Next, Chelios whistled a slap shot from the top of the right faceoff circle past Duck goaltender Guy Hebert at the 12:49 mark. Center Jeff Shantz cleanly won a faceoff back to Chelios at the right point to set up the shot.

It’s a play Chelios has scored many, many goals on, but amazingly enough it was his first from anywhere on the ice this season.

He had eight assists and a team-low plus-minus rating of minus-six going into the game, which helps to explain the Blackhawks’ 7-12-2 record before Wednesday.

Perhaps the only quality scoring chance the Ducks had in the second period came on defenseman Ruslan Salei’s missile off the crossbar late in the period. The crowd of 16,641 booed the Ducks off the ice to end the period.

The Blackhawks had converted only six of 100 opportunities with the man advantage going into the game and looked every bit as disorganized as that statistic would indicate.

By game’s end, however, the Blackhawks had even mastered the power play, scoring their third goal with Duck rookie Matt Cullen in the penalty box for tripping. Suter’s second goal of the season gave Chicago a 3-0 lead at the 11:14 mark of the final period.