Ducks Don’t Have Steam in 3-0 Loss

Amazing, mind-boggling events continue to happen at the Arrowhead Pond this season. No, no, no, the hockey game was a dud Sunday, a real clunker, so don’t go thinking there was anything special about the Mighty Ducks or the Phoenix Coyotes.

That was what was so remarkable about Sunday. It was the first lifeless game between the Pacific Division rivals.

No fights, no cheap shots, no woofing and very little action to speak of in the Coyotes’ ho-hum, 3-0 victory before an announced crowd of 13,896.

“I don’t think the intensity level was very good for both teams,” Duck right wing Teemu Selanne said in the understatement of the night. “This wasn’t the Ducks I know. Before the game, we didn’t talk to each other. We were just sitting there, thinking. There was not enough emotion.”

Normally, the Ducks and Coyotes are at each other’s throats a minute or so into the game. But not on Sunday.

“I don’t know what happened,” Selanne said. “The intensity wasn’t there. It’s so hard to just turn it on.”

Trevor Letowski, Shane Doan and former Duck Travis Green scored for the Coyotes and Mikhail Shtalenkov stopped 33 shots for his second consecutive shutout against his former team.

Actually, it’s three consecutive shutouts for Shtalenkov against the Ducks if you include one during the exhibition season.

It seemed the Ducks might move heaven and earth Sunday and still not put a puck behind Shtalenkov, who is 5-1 with three shutouts in two seasons against them.

Nothing could get through.

Shtalenkov got help from defenseman Keith Carney on point-blank shots by center Matt Cullen and Selanne as the Ducks pressed for a tying goal in the second period.

First, Carney managed to tip the puck off Cullen’s stick near the left post after Shtalenkov had been faked out of position. When the rebound kicked out to Selanne on the opposite post, Shtalenkov again had no chance to make the save.

But Carney, lying face-first on the ice, somehow stopped the puck from going into the net.

“I always try to help out my defensemen and they always try to help me,” Shtalenkov deadpanned at game’s end when asked about Carney’s save.

Moments later, Doan deflected a lazy point shot from Phoenix defenseman Deron Quint past Duck goalie Guy Hebert for a 2-0 lead at 13:08 of the second period.

Finally, after Green scored an empty-net goal, the Ducks had Shtalenkov at their mercy twice in the final minute. But first Ladislav Kohn then Jim McKenzie fired shots off the goal posts.

“It sounded like ‘Jingle Bells’ out there at the end,” Phoenix Coach Bob Francis said.

Sunday’s game was a lousy follow-up to the confidence boosts the Ducks had in rallying for a 2-1 overtime victory Wednesday over the Pittsburgh Penguins and routing the Washington Capitals, 5-2, Friday. “We talk about taking the next step,” Selanne said, referring to the Ducks’ training camp slogan. “But this is not the way we want to play.”

The Ducks got off to a staggering start, putting only three first-period shots on net and giving up a short-handed goal to Letowski at the 13:15 mark.

Phoenix managed only seven shots and the Ducks were still within striking distance.

In the second period, the Ducks stormed Shtalenkov’s net, outshooting Phoenix, 19-7, and playing as well as they have at any point during the first four games of this six-game home stand.

They simply couldn’t score against Shtalenkov, a Duck for his first five seasons in the NHL.

Phoenix, which defeated Colorado, 5-3, Saturday afternoon in Denver, seemed determined to play a conservative game in an attempt to slow the Ducks. In the end, there seemed to be no pace to the game--at least none that would benefit the free-skating Ducks.

“Everyone was flat,” Duck captain Paul Kariya said. “We came out flat. There was no energy in the building. It was a bad game all the way around. We didn’t do the little things.

“You don’t do those things and you don’t get rewarded.”