NO ADVANTAGE

By definition, a power play is supposed to help, not hinder, the team with the man advantage. If the opposition takes a foolish penalty, you make ‘em pay by scoring.

But the Mighty Ducks have so far failed to reap the benefits of their power play this season.

“We are the power killers,” said right wing Teemu Selanne, only partly joking after a 90-minute workout Monday at the team’s Anaheim practice facility.

Indeed, the power play has been killing the Ducks as they near the midway point of what has been the best start in their seven-season history. The Ducks are in last place in the hotly contested Pacific Division but have a franchise-best 18-17-4-1 record after 39 games.

It has been a long special-teams slide for the Ducks, who last season had the NHL’s best power play with a 22% conversion rate. Of Selanne’s league-leading 47 goals, 25 came on the power play--also tops in the NHL.

This season, the Ducks have clicked on 16 of 137 chances (11.7%), ranking ahead of only the expansion Atlanta Thrashers (11.6%) and Buffalo Sabres (8.5%). Only two of Selanne’s 15 goals have been on the power play.

The Philadelphia Flyers lead the NHL with a 25.3% success rate (40 of 158). The league average is a 16.5% conversion rate.

What’s more, the Ducks have a 6-8 record in games this season decided by one goal. They are a combined 0 for 25 on the power play in those eight losses.

Imagine where the Ducks might be if they had as few as five more power-play goals? Five more power-play goals might mean five more victories. Or, at the very least, five more ties.

Instead of sitting in last place in the Pacific, the Ducks might be a point or two out of first.

The Ducks have given their woebegone power play a good deal of thought recently, which is why they devoted most of their practices the last two days to improving it.

Crisper passing and harder work are the key ingredients to a strong power play, according to the Ducks. With Selanne and Paul Kariya working their offensive magic, it would seem the Ducks have the necessary skills to be successful.

“We have to be more aggressive, more hungry,” Selanne said. “We have to turn it around. If we do it better, the future will look so bright.”

Two important factors can be pinpointed as causes for the Ducks’ power-play failures this season.

First, the Ducks are victims of last season’s success.

In their first five seasons, the Ducks were poor on the power play and didn’t give opponents much of a reason to fear them. But last season they led the NHL for the first time and opponents have taken notice.

Second, and directly related to the first point, is that teams have started playing with more pressure on their penalty-killing units.

More pressure, particularly at the points (the spots along each wing just inside the blue line), has made it difficult for the Ducks to set their power play into motion.

The Ducks can’t do much about the intensity the opposition has on its penalty-killing units. But they certainly can better navigate their way through the pressure at the points.

The first step toward a turnaround was identifying their shortcomings, which the Ducks did during practices the last two days.

“We’re at the point now where we know it’s costing us,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “We’re at the point in the year where the numbers are not there because we’ve been unlucky. The power play has held us back from where we want to be.”

Fixing the power play isn’t all that difficult, but it will take more time and effort than the Ducks have devoted so far this season.

The trouble early in the season was because of lost faceoffs to start the power play. The Ducks lost as much as 20 seconds retreating to gain control of the puck in their own end. More recently, there have been other problems.

“We’re still looking for the extra pass, the perfect play,” said assistant George Burnett, who directs the power-play units. “When we’ve had success, the puck hasn’t stopped moving.”

Better puck movement is only a start. Fighting and winning more battles for loose pucks also will aid the Ducks. And beating the pressure at the points isn’t all that difficult.

“Other teams are pressing us more, no question about it,” Burnett said. “When we’re getting pressured up high, it’s important to get the puck down to the goal line and to attack the net. The guys who don’t have the puck have to find open spaces.

“If there’s not pressure, we’ve got to get the puck on top for shots from Paul Kariya or Oleg [Tverdovsky] or whoever’s out there. If they’ve overloaded one side against us, that’s where we’ve had Freddie [Olausson] sneaking backdoor.

“The numbers don’t lie. Our success last year didn’t just happen. We worked very hard last year. Maybe we just expected to have success coming out of the gate this year.”

In fact, the Duck power play sputtered, coughed and wheezed at times in the first half of last season, too. Selanne, for instance, had only seven power-play goals at this point last season.

In 1998-99, the Ducks clicked on 24.8% of their power plays in the final 49 games and finished the season with a franchise-best 22% success rate.

Can they do it again?

“Clearly, the team is frustrated and disappointed about the power play in the first 39 games,” Burnett said. “The guys understand the urgency [to improve it]. We can get better. We can’t assume it’s going to get better without everybody focused and working together, though.”