Ducks Cave In, Fall, 2-0

It doesn’t take much to defeat the faltering Mighty Ducks these days. The Colorado Avalanche needed only one goal Wednesday night at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

Rene Corbet’s power-play goal with 5:58 left in the game broke a scoreless tie, propelled the Avalanche to a 2-0 victory and gave the Ducks their 14th loss in the last 21 games.

Peter Forsberg added an empty-net goal with 1:06 left after a breakout pass by defenseman J.J. Daigneault struck goaltender Guy Hebert as he headed to the bench in favor of a sixth skater.

The Ducks played a credible defensive-oriented game against Pacific Division-leading Colorado, but created a late-game opening and the Avalanche sneaked through.

When defenseman David Karpa went to the penalty box for tripping, the Avalanche took full advantage with their power play. Corbet skated out of the right corner with a loose puck and snapped a quick wrist shot through traffic and past Hebert.

In the end, special teams won the game for the Avalanche and lost it for the Ducks. It was example of the marked difference in depth between the teams.

“I think the freshness of our skilled players on our power play isn’t what it should be,” Duck Coach Pierre Page said after the Ducks failed to score on eight chances with the man advantage. “I don’t see the intensity on our power play. I see our guys moving slowly because they’re resting from their penalty-killing shift.

“The good news is it’s still possible to be successful with an average power play.”

At the moment, the Ducks must improve merely to become average on the power play. They went into the game with the NHL’s fourth-worst power play, clicking at only an 11.7% conversion rate.

Unlike Colorado Coach Marc Crawford, Page is forced to use many of the same players on the power play and for killing penalties.

In fact, Page followed his recent trend of giving his top two lines most of the ice time beginning late in the second period. It’s as much a way to jump-start the slumping Ducks, 15-25-8 at the All-Star break, as a realization he doesn’t have the depth to compete for a playoff berth.

Page said he’s feeling many of the frustrations Ron Wilson felt while trying to get the most out of his thin ranks last season.

“Ron Wilson was as frustrated as anybody in the NHL until Christmas last season,” Page said. “He probably pulled every hair out of his head. He had to do some things that made half the team happy and the other half of the team mad.”

Last season, the Ducks’ top-line players, Paul Kariya, Steve Rucchin and Teemu Selanne, were told to create scoring chances as they saw fit. The other three lines were instructed to think defense first.

Slowly but surely, Page has adopted many of Wilson’s strategies as the season has progressed. Early in training camp, for example, Page said he was reluctant to place restrictions on his third- and four-line players.

“We’ve put some limitations on players now, yeah,” Page said. “Two lines do some [offensive-oriented] things and the two other lines do other [more defensive] things. It’s why we’re creating roster moves. We want to create opportunities for people to surprise us.

“We’ve reached a status quo. We’ve got to break out of it. We’ve got to find players who are getting better. We can’t just play two lines all night. Somebody has got to step up and do the job.”

Page gave rookie center Bob Wren, the leading scorer at Cincinnati of the American Hockey League, a crack at it Wednesday. Wren didn’t play much, but he broke in alone twice on Colorado goaltender Patrick Roy to create scoring opportunities.

He didn’t score, but no else seemed scoring either.

Nothing clicked for the Ducks in the first period plus the first few minutes of the second when Page played all four lines. In fact, nothing clicked later in the second period either.