Ducks’ Feeble Start Is a Real Turnoff

The Mighty Ducks spent another winter’s eve ticking off their fans while making the Florida Panthers look like the next Stanley Cup champions.

Such listless performances have become standard fare at the Arrowhead Pond, which is no doubt why a puny crowd of only 13,024 stopped by to see the Ducks’ 5-1 loss Wednesday.

The loss extended the Ducks’ losing streak to a season-high four games. Coupled with the Edmonton Oilers’ 1-1 tie against the San Jose Sharks, the loss dropped the Ducks to ninth place and currently out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Ducks had only themselves to blame.

What’s worse, they don’t have long to get their act together. They were scheduled to depart this morning for a cross-country trip to play the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday and the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

Oh, yeah, another trip to Joe Louis Arena will fix the Ducks’ problems.

“We have to be a focused and committed team,” Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “Travel is no excuse. We’re now to a point where we have to find a way to fix it. We’ve got to buckle down like crazy to fix this.”

To be sure, Florida is a fine team and likely will win the Southeast Division title with ease. Viktor Kozlov, who had a hat trick, is a serviceable center.

And Mikhail Shtalenkov?

Well, you ought to know what the former Duck goalie is capable of by now, particularly when he faces his old teammates.

However, the Panthers are not a team that should whip the Ducks the way they did. The gap between the 1993 expansion teams is simply not that great.

But when the Ducks play the passionless style they began the game with Wednesday, they are ripe for the picking.

The considerable talents of Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne aren’t going to rescue the Ducks every night, especially when it all goes bad the way it did against the Panthers.

With the NHL trapped in a defensive mode for the foreseeable future, it’s all the more important that the Ducks start fast, build a lead and let Kariya and Selanne work their magic.

The opposite happened against the Panthers.

Kozlov scored two power-play goals in the first 12:09 and a hustling Ray Whitney added an even-strength goal three seconds before the end of the first period.

Shtalenkov faced only four shots and the Ducks were booed off the ice at period’s end. Florida chased Guy Hebert by scoring three times on nine shots.

The second period started just as badly when Kozlov completed the first three-goal game against the Ducks this season by banking a bad-angle shot off the left leg of defenseman Niclas Havelid.

Game over.

“There’s no magic formula,” Hartsburg said. “We just weren’t very good. We’re struggling. Now is when our leaders and character players have to step up. This is a bump in the road and we’ve got to fix it.”

Jeff Nielsen ended the only remaining suspense by scoring the Ducks’ first goal against Shtalenkov this season at 6:00 of the second period.

Shtalenkov had shut out the Ducks by scores of 3-0 and 4-0 in October while a member of the Phoenix Coyotes. He also shut them out, 1-0, last Jan. 30 while playing for Edmonton.

Nielsen’s goal seemed to shake the Ducks from their slumber briefly, but a rally seemed far-fetched.

Florida’s Pavel Bure snuffed the Ducks’ momentum by breezing into their zone and whistling a backhander past Dominic Roussel for a 5-1 lead 1:50 into the final period.