Ducks Barely Ruffle Feathers

Pathetic. Pitiful. Putrid.

Select an adjective.

They each fit the Mighty Ducks’ lifeless performance during a 5-2 loss to the Florida Panthers before an equally catatonic crowd of 16,434 on Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond.

Then again, who could blame the fans for sitting on their hands?

There certainly wasn’t much to cheer about, particularly during a third-period collapse that rivaled the Ducks’ worst 20 minutes of the season.

“I think there was a sense we could just throw our sticks out there and we were going to win the game,” Duck captain Paul Kariya said. “We can’t do that. The teams in this league are too good.”

It wasn’t as if the Panthers could be easily mistaken for the future Stanley Cup champions. But Florida did all the right things and made the Ducks pay the price for another in a string of recent lackluster showings.

True, the Ducks played without their two top offensive defensemen and their best center because of injuries. But it’s debatable whether defensemen Fredrik Olausson and Ruslan Salei and center Steve Rucchin could have helped.

“It was a total team effort tonight,” Coach Craig Hartsburg groused after the Ducks gave up four third-period goals, including a penalty shot by Florida right wing Ray Whitney. “We all win together. We all lose together. Now, we’ve got to all fix it together.”

Starting today, Hartsburg will hold a four-day mini-camp in an effort to recapture the intense forechecking style of play that’s enabled the Ducks to get this far.

The Ducks, fifth in the Western Conference, don’t play again until Friday against the Dallas Stars.

“Obviously, we haven’t played that great the last five or six games, but we’ve been getting away with it,” Hartsburg said. “We’ve got to work on our work ethic. We’ll start [today].”

Added Kariya: “We need some time to get our game back in order. We’ve been playing a lot of games recently and sometimes you can get into bad habits.”

It also won’t hurt the Ducks to give Olausson (bruised ribs), Salei (sore shoulder) and Rucchin (groin strain) time to heal their injuries before facing Dallas.

The rest of the Ducks might have earned a day off today as a reward for a solid effort Sunday. But the game was only 1:32 old and they trailed, 1-0, after Florida’s Oleg Kvasha scored.

Duck right wing Teemu Selanne countered with his NHL-leading 40th goal, a power-play goal at 5:51 of the first period.

After a scoreless second period, the Panthers torched the Ducks with goals by Radek Dvorak, Whitney (who had two) and Rob Niedermayer.

Ted Drury’s fifth goal made the score a bit more respectable in the game’s final minute, but it was merely a consolation prize for one of the few hard-working Ducks.

Goalie Guy Hebert didn’t look sharp on any of the first three goals, but he didn’t get the required help to shut down the opportunistic Panthers either.

“It was a tough night,” said Hebert, who faced 41 shots. “I didn’t have enough saves. We certainly didn’t play nearly as well as we can and we have [in the past]. I don’t really have any excuse for it. . . . I don’t know what happened. Either they caught fire or we ran out of gas.”

Asked for his opinion of Hebert’s performance, Hartsburg said: “He was part of the team. We weren’t very sharp. We didn’t come prepared to win the hockey game.”

Perhaps the most troubling part is that the Ducks have fallen into a pattern of sluggish play. Their aggressive forecheck, which once created turnovers that led to numerous scoring chances, has all but vanished.

Like Thursday’s 4-2 victory over the Kings and Wednesday’s 2-2 tie against the Ottawa Senators, the Ducks spent much of the game in their end. They were outshot Sunday, 41-27, the third consecutive game they have given up 39 or more shots.

Remarkably, the Ducks are 1-1-1 in their last three.

“We can’t continue to play like this to be successful down the stretch and in the playoffs--if we even get to the playoffs,” Hartsburg said. “We haven’t clinched anything yet.”