This Homestand Was Unwelcome

Well, at least while the Mighty Ducks are searching for some goals they can take solace in their stingy defense and saves . . . er, uh, say what?

You mean to tell me they lost, 5-2, to the New York Islanders? Wasn’t that the same Islander team that scored only 16 goals in its first six games?

After that sorry performance, all Mighty Duck positive feelings have been officially eliminated.

Let’s see. Can’t score. Couldn’t stop anyone from scoring Sunday.

A defenseman, Dmitri Mironov, shares the team lead in goals, with a grand total of two. This same defenseman, despite a goal Sunday, had a minus-3 game.

And don’t be fooled by the final score. The Ducks’ second goal came when New York defenseman Scott Lachance tumbled into goaltender Tommy Salo, taking him out and leaving an easy shot for Espen Knutsen. Without that break the Ducks have only 11 goals on the season and are tied with the Chicago Blawkhawks for the NHL’s lowest goal production.

It got so bad Sunday that at one point Joe Sacco had an opportunity to take a close shot while being guarded by a man who had lost his stick at the other end of the ice. Sacco fanned.

Just to make things worse for the folks on Katella Avenue, deposed Duck Coach Ron Wilson has the Washington Capitals off to a 7-1 start. (How long do you think it will be until the Ducks edit out Capital updates from the out-of-town scores?)

OK, teams can have off nights, and Sunday certainly was an aberration for the Ducks if you look at their game-by-game scores and what had been the fewest goals allowed in the league. But why does it seem like other teams don’t have off nights against the Ducks? Boston gave up five goals and three goals during games on a recent West Coast trip, but in between, the Bruins shut out the Ducks. The Ottawa Senators allowed seven goals against the Kings after limiting the Ducks to one.

The Bruins and Senators slowed things down so much it was as if someone had dumped sand in the neutral zone. The Islanders came into the Pond Sunday and ran a track meet. The Ducks couldn’t catch up on the ice or on the scoreboard. New York constantly beat the Ducks down the ice, even when the Islanders were short-handed. What happened to dictating the style and flow of the game when you’re in your own building? Right now, the Ducks couldn’t dictate a memo.

“Instead of reacting to styles, create your own style and create your own tempo,” center Mark Janssens said. “What we want to try to be is an aggressive, forechecking team that is also committed to defense. And I think you can have both.”

Sounds good. The Ducks always sound good when they talk. But the gap between intentions and actions seems to be growing wider.

“We’ve got to do what we say we’re going to do,” Coach Pierre Page said. “Talk is cheap in this business.”

So is talking about talk. The Ducks aren’t getting it. If they do get it, they aren’t acting like it.

“I think we were prepared by the coaches to be ready for how [the Islanders] were going to start,” goaltender Guy Hebert said. “But I really think they did catch us by surprise.”

Forty-nine seconds into the game, the Islanders had their first goal. Surprise.

Until a certain holdout (hint: his last name rhymes with Maria) signs, this is what the Ducks have and who they are. They should be used to it by now. After all, they’ve had the preseason and seven games to adjust to this group and its notable absentee. I thought they were supposed to have come together during that long trip to Japan. Well, they’ll have plenty of time to bond again on the planes and in hotel checkout lines over the next three weeks, when they play eight of 10 games on the road. That’s what’s so frustrating. This five-game homestand was supposed to be the easy part. Instead it produced only one victory.

So who are these Ducks? And who’s the goaltender? One minute it’s Hebert. The next it’s Mikhail Shtalenkov. Then it’s Hebert again.

Page sent in Shtalenkov in the second period, after New York’s fourth goal of the game. Forty seconds later, Robert Reichel blasted a slap shot past Shtalenkov. Page sent Hebert back in after only 2:38 of ice time for Shtalenkov.

Page said this game of merry-goalie-round was his way of shaking things up. Instead he was left with two goaltenders who couldn’t take something positive from their day’s work.

Teemu Selanne doesn’t have much to show for his efforts either. He’s getting shadowed and knocked all over the ice and he hasn’t scored a goal on the North American continent this season.

Selanne joked that he would be happy if a shot bounced off of his butt and went in, just to break his drought. Behind intervention? Or maybe Teemu and friends could simply use some good old divine intervention--from the Almighty Duck in the Sky.

They’d probably settle for Paul Kariya.