Hartsburg Is Turning Up Heat for Stretch Run

The Ducks are 3-1-2 in their last six games and playing their best hockey this season, but they also are on the outside looking in with 26 games left. The 10th-place Ducks are three points out of eighth place, the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

“Every game is so huge,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said.

The Ducks spent part of Thursday’s practice performing one-on-one drills, the winners gloating and the losers doing push-ups.

Hartsburg believed the Ducks lost far too many individual battles, particularly in front of their net, during a 5-3 loss Wednesday against the Dallas Stars. So, the Ducks fought over loose pucks against the boards and in front of the net Thursday.

“Every shift, every battle can win or lose you games at this point in the season,” Hartsburg said. “We’re only concerned with the short term. We’ve got to get ourselves ready to play the next game. It’s pretty black and white. We’re going to have to play our best hockey right now.”

The Ducks face the best and worst of the West, playing the conference-leading Blues at St. Louis on Saturday and the last-place Blackhawks at Chicago on Monday.

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Hartsburg is not in favor of expanding the NHL playoffs when the league grows to 30 teams with the addition of expansion franchises in St. Paul, Minn., and Columbus, Ohio, next season. Sixteen playoff spots are plenty, as far as he’s concerned. Hartsburg said the increased competition has been good for regular-season play.

“I think we’ve said the last three or four years that [the playoff races] are starting earlier and earlier,” he said. “There are more hard-fought games now, which is what everybody wants. Nothing is out of the question at this point.

“It’s harder and harder to make the playoffs. There are going to be some good teams that are going to miss the playoffs this season. When there were only 21 teams, it was pretty well decided by Christmas.

“Now, nobody is out of it in the West.”

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Left wing Marty McInnis, who has been sidelined for six games because of a groin strain, resumed light skating. McInnis isn’t expected to play until Wednesday against the Calgary Flames, at the earliest.

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Oleg Tverdovsky’s eight-game point streak--three goals, 10 assists--ended Wednesday against Dallas. He tied J.J. Daigneault for the longest point streak by a Duck defenseman. Daigneault had his streak in 1996-97. . . . Teemu Selanne’s assist on Paul Kariya’s third-period goal Wednesday extended his point streak to nine games.