Ducks Need Alarm Clock

The Mighty Ducks just don’t get it.

Good teams enjoy beating up on the bad ones. They play just as efficiently and skate just as hard against the stiffs as against the Stanley Cup contenders.

It’s a lesson the Ducks haven’t yet grasped. A 2-1 loss Monday to the lowly Montreal Canadiens at the half-empty Arrowhead Pond was another example of the Ducks’ inability to learn from the past.

Put this latest stinker into the same slag heap as an equally dreary 2-1 loss Nov. 11 to the Canadiens at Montreal. Listless losses at home to Phoenix and Boston earlier this season belong there, too.

Certainly, the Canadiens had a hand in ending the Ducks’ all-too-brief winning streak at two games.

But the Ducks have played better, smarter games this season.

A franchise-low crowd of 12,496, which appeared to be more in the 9,000 range, watched the Ducks play with varying degrees of intensity Monday.

At times, especially in the second period, the Ducks were excellent. But they didn’t have enough sustained excellence to subdue the Canadiens, last in the NHL’s Northeast Division with 16 points.

The Ducks figured to get a big boost from right wing Teemu Selanne’s return from a groin injury. Of course, they also figured to skate circles around the hapless Habs.

Neither happened.

Montreal’s Trevor Linden produced the game-winner 7:51 into the final period, outmuscling Duck defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky for a quick shot from the slot. It was only the second goal this season for Linden, a 30-goal scorer for most of his career.

“Our power play killed us,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “Our unwillingness to win any battles and get our noses dirty cost us the game.”

The Duck power play misfired on five chances, including a two-man advantage for 32 seconds with the score 1-all midway through the second period.

Selanne couldn’t direct a bouncing pass from Marty McInnis into an open net while Montreal’s Karl Dykhuis was in the penalty box for obstruction holding.

After Craig Rivet joined Dykhuis in the box, the Ducks pressed harder for a go-ahead goal, but came up empty against goalie Jose Theodore.

Near the end of the period, with the teams skating at full strength, Paul Kariya whistled a shot from the left wing that appeared destined for the back of the net.

However, Theodore’s glove shot out and snared the puck at the last instant at 18:51.

“It’s a broken record,” Kariya would say at game’s end. “We’re creating lots of chances on the power play. We’re rushing things a little bit, not being patient. I don’t think it has anything to do with our system or the players out there.

“We have to work on our second effort. There’s not a lot of second effort. We can score all kinds of pretty goals with the talent we have. We need to score some gritty goals, which we haven’t done all year.”

The Ducks started the game with the required sense of urgency but went flat again just before the end of the first period.

With Pavel Trnka already in the penalty box for holding Montreal’s Scott Thornton, Pascal Trepanier was whistled for boarding Shayne Corson at 18:32.

Martin Rucinsky made the Ducks pay the price for their penalties, converting while the Canadiens were on a two-man advantage 15 seconds before the end of the first period.

The Ducks continued to skate through mud to start the second.

Finally, a stolen puck and a lead pass from Jeff Nielsen to a streaking Ted Donato set up a breakaway and the tying goal for the Ducks at 8:26 of the second period.

The Ducks dominated the last half of the second period but fired blanks against Theodore, who won his second consecutive start after beginning the season 0-4.

“They played a great road game,” Kariya said of the Canadiens, who also defeated the Kings, 5-3, Saturday.

“We knew it was important to get a lead against them. We tied it up and had a chance to bury them in the second period with the power plays and also five on five.

“We just didn’t get it done.”

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RANGER JOB ON THE LINE

If the New York Rangers don’t play better, Coach John Muckler will be gone, writes Helene Elliott. Page 12