Players Mourn Racer’s Death

Duck captain Paul Kariya was saddened by the news CART driver Greg Moore, a childhood friend, died Sunday after hitting the wall in the Marlboro 500 at the California Speedway at Fontana.

Winger Teemu Selanne, an avid rally-car racer in his native Finland in the off-season, broke the news to Kariya before the Ducks’ game against Phoenix at the Arrowhead Pond.

“It’s a tragedy,” Kariya said. “We were friends back in Vancouver. We used to talk all the time. It’s sad. We played hockey together when we were younger, really young.”

The two had been out of touch for about a year, but Kariya said, “We spent some time together at the All-Star game in Vancouver two years ago.”

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The Duck power play fizzled again Sunday in a 3-0 loss to the Coyotes and Selanne knows why.

“I think we should just play more five on five,” he joked after the Ducks failed to click on three chances with the man advantage and dropped to six for 42 this season (14.3%).

In a more serious tone, he added, “When things aren’t going well on the power play, we need to make a couple of passes, then just shoot. We’ve tried to fix it by making unbelievable passes. We have to keep it simple and smart. That’s how we fixed it last year.”

Last season, the Ducks struggled to score on the power play early on. But they eventually became the league’s top power-play unit, scoring on an NHL-leading 22% of their chances.

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Tony Hrkac, acquired Friday from the New York Islanders, didn’t arrive in Orange County until late Saturday night. Fog in New York delayed his departure for six hours. He missed his connection in Denver and wound up spending a grand total of 13 hours getting from coast to coast. “It was a long day,” he said with a heavy sigh.