Just Making Playoffs Isn’t Enough Now

The Mighty Ducks have proven they’re no novelty act. Now the sense of novelty that accompanied the team’s first trip to the playoffs last season has gone as well. All of a sudden the Ducks have reached the next plateau.

“You start off with hope,” defenseman Bobby Dollas said. “But then you have expectations.”

Hope entices and inspires. It’s the reason you root for the underdog against the overwhelming favorite. Hope costs nothing and disappoints no one. And if things don’t work out, there’s always next year.

Expectations are the killer. When left unfulfilled, they can lead to long summers, sometimes accompanied by firings and trades. Failed expectations are the bounced checks of sports.

For four years, the Mighty Ducks could afford to get by on hope. Simply competing for a playoff spot in the inaugural season was nice. Making the playoffs last season was great. Winning a series against the Phoenix Coyotes? Super. The Ducks and their fans could even afford to feel good about losing in a four-game sweep in the second round, because it came at the hands of the eventual Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, and three of the games went to overtime.

The bar sits at a higher level now. The fans want more, expect more. So do the players.

“I think just making the playoffs is not good enough,” Dollas said. “What we want to achieve this year is a level of consistency that, hopefully, before we go into the playoffs we can get into that same high and just ride in. A lot of times the teams that do real well in the playoffs are the teams that go in hot.” Four years might seem quick to start heaping expectations on a franchise, but not in the 1990s. Patience is a lost word in sports, ever since the Florida Panthers went to the Stanley Cup finals in their third year, the Orlando Magic bypassed the NBA’s right-of-succession and went to the finals in their sixth year and even the stodgy NFL had two second-year franchises come within a game of the Super Bowl last season.

The time seems to be slipping by quickly. At least it is for three original Ducks--Dollas, goaltender Guy Hebert and right winger Joe Sacco--who got together for a round of golf recently and found themselves reflecting on the passage of time.

“We’re going on our fifth year right now,” Dollas said. “We’ve been here since the beginning. We finally made the playoffs together and we hope to play many more seasons together.”

They already have fought through the first battle--for credibility--that the franchise faced after the unveiling of the team’s nickname and logo.

“I think the guys that were here the first year did a good job of turning this from a media event, or the offshoot of some movie, to a real legitimate hockey team,” Hebert said. “We had a lot of big, strong tough guys who weren’t afraid to do what they did best, and that was play physical and fight. I think that gave us some sense of where we’re going early on.

“I think when you look around the room and you see guys like Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya [or at least Kariya’s locker, until he’s signed] and Tomas Sandstrom, these are the type of players that play for top-notch teams. I think, with the acquisition of those type [of] players, the joke’s over.”

Besides, Hebert said, the Ducks aren’t the only team in sports with a silly-looking logo.

“Just think about the Miami Dolphins,” Hebert said. “I was watching Dan Marino--maybe one of the best quarterbacks ever--wearing a helmet with . . . a dolphin with a helmet on his head. I was thinking, ‘Ours really isn’t that bad, when you think about it.’ ”

Hebert thinks the sight of the duck-billed mask charging up the ice might even strike a little fear in the heart of opponents this year.

“I think last year was an important step for the franchise, getting to the playoffs and having a little bit of success,” Hebert said. “From now on, teams are going to take us more serious. They’re going to realize that we’re upgrading our team every year.

“We’re going to be ranked a little higher in the preseason polls. I think that’s good. It’s going to be a challenge for us to try to be as good or better than we were last year. When you’ve played for four years for a little respect around the league, it’s finally nice to have some.”

But with respect comes pressure. The Ducks have farther to fall now. We’ll learn more about what they’re made of. Great teams and players welcome the pressure. They thrive on it.

“When there’s not much expected of you, you can take nights off,” Hebert said. “You can say, ‘Well, no one thinks we’re going to win anyway,’ or, ‘Coach knows that we’re undermanned for this game,’ or whatever. But when you take away some of those excuses, it’s a bigger challenge. Guys don’t get to this level without having to face some adversity and trying to exceed all expectations. I think it’s a good thing.”

Any franchise, with the possible exception of the Chicago Cubs, wants to be in this position. Now the Ducks must prove they’re worthy. The euphoria is gone and it’s time to grind through the arduous task of winning a championship, to keep taking steps toward winning a Stanley Cup without slipping backward.

These are the real goals that teams should aspire to, not merely trying to earn respect. Four years after they played their first game, it’s time to welcome the Mighty Ducks to the NHL.