Ducks Make All Wrong Moves

The Mighty Ducks handled the puck as if it were toxic Thursday night at General Motors Place. Their goaltending wasn’t all it could have been. And their power play failed them.

A dysfunctional 3-1 loss against the Vancouver Canucks represented a significant step backward for the Ducks, who can ill afford many more clunkers in the remaining 17 games.

A victory would have vaulted the Ducks into ninth place, keeping them two points behind the eighth-place San Jose Sharks in the fight for the final Western Conference playoff spot.

But the Ducks’ loss and San Jose’s 4-3 victory over the Nashville Predators opened the gap to four points.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. It’s the theme of the Ducks’ season.

Playing their fifth consecutive game without Paul Kariya, nursing a bruised right foot, the Ducks also lost all the momentum gained from victories earlier this week against San Jose and Edmonton.

Right wing Teemu Selanne was blanked for the second consecutive game. He has only one goal and three assists while Kariya has been sidelined.

“A couple of turnovers cost us the game,” Selanne said after making one of them. “We have to play smarter as a team, especially when Paul is out. I think we tried to be too fancy with the puck tonight.”

Hockey is a game of mistakes. Many of them are unavoidable. Some come from good intentions. Others result from desperation.

But the Ducks made mistakes with the puck that playoff teams rarely make. Three giveaways led to goals for Vancouver’s Alexander Mogilny, Mark Messier and Brad May.

“We can’t make mistakes with the puck like that at this time of the year,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said.

There were other noteworthy problems with the Ducks’ game, including a lack of urgency from the start. They seemed to be skating through quicksand until they were down, 3-0. The Ducks also failed to sustain pressure on their power play, going scoreless for only the third time in 16 games.

“If we got one or two [power-play] goals it would have been a different story,” Selanne said, referring specifically to a four-minute advantage the Ducks had late in the second period. “It was a really important time for us, but we didn’t get the puck in the offensive zone. We made bad decisions. I don’t know if we felt too good about having a four-minute power play or what. But that was the time when we had to bury the other team.”

Kip Miller’s bad-angle shot from the left corner that struck goalie Felix Potvin and trickled into the net finally gave the Ducks some life. But Miller’s seventh goal this season came with 8:59 left in the game.

Potvin, superb despite not having much work early in the game, stopped Miller’s try from near the right post with 4:57 left. The play was reviewed by the video goal judge, but the replay was ruled to be inconclusive.

“The difference in the game was their goaltender was outstanding,” Hartsburg said. “The other difference was we made three bad turnovers that cost us the game.”

Mogilny enlivened a dull start, whistling a quick shot past goalie Guy Hebert after Selanne’s neutral-zone turnover late in the opening period.

After starting the second period credibly, the Ducks let the puck get into the wrong hands again. Steve Rucchin lost control while skating out of the defensive zone. Trent Klatt swiped it, then whipped a pass to a streaking Messier on right wing.

Messier unleashed a low shot that slipped past Hebert at 11:49 for his 1,700th career point. It was the sort of shot Hebert stopped without much trouble in the Ducks’ wins over San Jose and Edmonton.

Hebert had no chance to stop Vancouver’s third goal, a point-blank shot from May at 15:02. May picked off Tony Hrkac’s poor clearing attempt.

Actually, that’s not quite right. Hrkac’s pass went right to May, who couldn’t have missed it if he tried. Hebert could not react fast enough to stop the shot and Vancouver had a 3-0 lead.