Ducks Manage to Keep Footing

Take two steps forward. Take two steps back. Take one step forward.

Hey, you’re doing the Funky Ducky.

Don’t be embarrassed if you feel a little clumsy. Take a good look at the Mighty Ducks. They have been performing their awkward Stanley Cup playoff dance all season.

The Ducks stumbled all around the Arrowhead Pond on Sunday but still managed to record a 1-0 victory over the troublesome Nashville Predators.

An announced crowd of 13,601 watched center Johan Davidsson turn a gentle flip from the left point into the game’s only goal with 2:50 left in the second period.

Goalie Guy Hebert stopped 33 shots--many from long distance, but also several from point-blank range in the early going--for his fourth shutout this season.

Coach Craig Hartsburg certainly didn’t care how it looked.

“Two points is two points,” he said. “We did a good job of battling and finding a way to win the hockey game.”

Sunday’s victory ended a two-game losing streak, which had interrupted a two-game winning streak.

It also moved the Ducks within two points of the Calgary Flames and the San Jose Sharks in the fight for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.

The game was the Ducks’ seventh consecutive without left wing Paul Kariya, who continues his slow recovery from a bruised right foot suffered blocking a shot Feb. 16. Hartsburg didn’t rule out having Kariya in the lineup Wednesday against the New York Rangers. But Saturday against the Blues at St. Louis seems like a better bet at this point.

Meanwhile, the Ducks soldiered on without their leading scorer. They also were missing center Antti Aalto, out a third consecutive game because of flu-like conditions.

The Ducks recalled Davidsson from Cincinnati of the American Hockey League on Saturday night in order to bolster their forward ranks. Davidsson took Aalto’s spot on the third line and delivered his first NHL goal since scoring twice Dec. 9, 1998 against Vancouver.

Mike Leclerc’s strong forechecking set up the play, forcing a lackluster clearing pass by Nashville’s Sergei Krivokrasov. Ladislav Kohn picked off the pass just inside the blue line but quickly lost control of the puck.

Davidsson swept in and whipped a shot from near the left point that fluttered by Krivokrasov, then past Leclerc and Nashville’s Bob Boughner before slipping between the legs of goalie Tomas Vokoun and into the net.

“You never know,” Davidsson said. “If you throw 100 pucks on the net maybe one or two will go in. I don’t have the greatest shot in the league. It barely moved, but it made it all the way. I looked up and saw the puck going through the goalie’s legs and I said, ‘Oh my god, I think it’s going in.’ ”

Davidsson’s goal was the sort that other teams have been scoring on the Ducks this season, which Hebert happily pointed out at game’s end. “The ‘Jerk’ [Leclerc’s nickname] gets in front of the goalie,” Hebert said, referring to his teammate’s screen on Vokoun. “If the goalie sees the shot, he stops it. If he doesn’t, it’s going in. I saw him drop to his knees and his head was still looking at the shooter. . . . No sympathy. I’m like, ‘All right. Let’s go. Maybe one will be enough to win.’ ”

The Ducks’ lack of offensive flair contributed to a game that was played in fits and starts. Right wing Teemu Selanne was held without a goal or an assist for the third consecutive game.

Hartsburg shuffled his top two lines after the game’s midway point, hoping for a spark. He got it from the third line instead. Davidsson’s goal was his first in 44 NHL games. Hebert, who made critical first-period saves on Mark Mowers at the left post and Tom Fitzgerald at the right, then turned away the Predators at every turn.

“I didn’t want to cough up any rebounds,” Hebert said. “It was exactly what I’ve been working on with Francois [Allaire, the Ducks’ goalie consultant]. I tried to make my wall. . . . I had a good look at a lot of pucks. My defensemen and the forwards too let me see the pucks. They did a great job.”