Ducks Don’t Have Answer for Devils

The Mighty Ducks were suffocated Wednesday.

The New Jersey Devils grabbed the Ducks by their throats and wouldn’t let go until the final buzzer sounded on a 2-1 victory before an announced crowd of 13,474 at the Arrowhead Pond.

The Ducks hoped to be within point-blank range of New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur, but were pushed repeatedly to the perimeter. They wanted to generate offense on their power play, but didn’t manage a single shot in seven minutes with the man advantage.

Unlike some recent games--a 2-1 loss Monday to the Montreal Canadiens, for example--the Ducks seemed to have their minds and bodies focused on the task at hand.

The Ducks skated with a mission. They won all sorts of the small battles they lost against Montreal, playing with grit and emotion. They spent almost all of the third period in the Devils’ end of the ice, pressing for the game-tying goal against Brodeur.

And the Ducks still lost.

The Devils scored two of the ugliest goals you’re likely to see in a hockey game.

But that’s the Devils’ game. New Jersey knows there are no style points in hockey. An ugly goal counts as much as a highlight-reel masterpiece.

The Ducks haven’t come to terms with that concept this season.

Near the end of the first period, New Jersey defenseman Brian Rafalski’s shot from the point was so weak that teammate Bobby Holik picked it off before it got to the net.

Holik swept around a tangle of bodies in front of Duck goalie Guy Hebert and scored the Devils’ first power-play goal on the road this season. The Devils were 0 for 20 until Holik scored at 18:28 of the first period.

In the second, Holik deflected defenseman Scott Stevens’ point shot past a well-screened Hebert for a 2-1 New Jersey lead at the 15:37 mark.

Simple, effective plays.

New Jersey’s goals were the sort Coach Craig Hartsburg has been hoping to see from the Ducks this season.

Instead, the Ducks relied on their usual perimeter game, and a first-period penalty shot that gave them a brief 1-0 lead.

Defenseman Fredrik Olausson produced the Duck lead by converting on the first penalty shot of his career at 11:19 of the first period.

Olausson, hauled down by New Jersey’s Ken Daneyko on a breakaway, faked Brodeur to the ice and neatly slipped the puck behind the goalie.

But that was about as close as any of the Ducks got to Brodeur, something Hartsburg hoped would not happen Wednesday.

“It’s hard to score from 35 or 40 feet from the net these days in the league,” Hartsburg said before the game. “Not only do you have to beat the goalie, but there are usually three or four pairs of legs in front.

“There are a lot of goals from five and six feet away. It would be nice to see us get more of those. It’s second and third effort [that makes it happen]. If you do that you’re going to get rewarded.”

Mere seconds after Holik scored his second goal, he was shown the way to the New Jersey dressing room after rapping Steve Rucchin of the Ducks in the head with the end of his stick.

Holik drew a five-minute major penalty for a deliberate attempt to injure Rucchin plus a game misconduct. The Ducks had five minutes to score as many times as they could before the Devils returned to full strength.

It could have been a turning point in the game for the Ducks. Instead, the Ducks’ powerless power play failed them and enabled the Devils to preserve a 2-1 lead.

“It’s a long [season], you go through stages when you’re fighting things,” Hartsburg said.

Of the five-minute power play, the Duck coach added: “We couldn’t get a whistle and regroup on it, we started to force things. The rhythm was controlled by the penalty-killers. And we got all scrambly.”