Ducks Are New Power in the West

When the Mighty Ducks finally took off on their belated venture to playoff contention a week or so ago, they started with this bit of knowledge:

* They had four more games against the Kings, who really aren’t their rivals, but more the little cousins they know they can beat.

* They had goalie Guy Hebert, who would drive the Kings’ bus to get them to an arena to play against him.

Hebert had it easy enough Tuesday night at Staples Center when first-period goals by Ted Donato and Antti Aalto and third-period scores by Kip Miller, Ladislav Kohn and Paul Kariya drove the Ducks to a 5-2 victory, their third in four games.

The other game was a tie against the Kings a week ago.

The victory pushed the Ducks into an eighth-place tie--the playoff cut line--with San Jose. The Sharks, who have one less win, have a game in hand. Each team has 76 points.

“The battle is still on,” Duck winger Teemu Selanne said. “We played a solid game, but we have to play another solid game [tonight] at Edmonton. We have to have our ‘A’ game there.”

The Kings tend to play “D” games against the Ducks.

Three of the seven points the Ducks have earned on their flight back from the brink have come at the hands of the Kings, to whom they have lost only once in two seasons.

All three have been delivered by Hebert, who is 7-0-2 against the Kings in his last nine games.

For all of their misfortune, the Kings again managed to hold onto fifth spot in the Western Conference when Phoenix lost to lowly Chicago, 3-0.

“We looked at Phoenix’s losing tonight, and it doesn’t make me feel any better,” King Coach Andy Murray said.

It shouldn’t. The Kings are 0-3-1-1 in their last four games and limp onto the road for games at Philadelphia, Boston and Atlanta, perhaps a respite after dealing so futilely with Orange County lately.

Miller’s game-winner came at 8:06 of the third period when the Kings’ Rob Blake bobbled a puck at the blue line and Aalto pushed it down the ice. Matt Cullen was there with Bob Corkum’s stick hooking him all the way, but not so much so that he couldn’t hook a pass to Miller, who finished with a goal and two assists.

It gave the Ducks a 3-1 lead and was needed when Nelson Emerson popped a puck past Hebert after receiving a pass from Glen Murray at 11:27.

“We had cut into the gap and thought we were getting the momentum in the game,” said Emerson, whose goal was his first since coming over in trade from Atlanta a week ago.

That was cut short by Kohn’s goal only 1:14 later.

“The showed real composure, getting a goal right back from us,” Emerson said.

The goal by Kariya was window dressing. The Kings were done. So were many of the announced 17,494 on hand.

Donato’s goal, 7:55 into the game, came on the power play when he shot at an impossible angle that became possible when the puck hit Sean O’Donnell’s skate and caromed behind goalie Jamie Storr to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead.

It became 2-0 when Aalto was loose in front of the net and hammered in a rebound of a shot that he had tipped from Kip Miller into Storr’s pads, but not out of range.

Aalto’s goal showed what can happen when you venture close enough to the net to be in rebound-range. The Kings challenged Hebert eight times in the first period, but the shots were really no challenges at all. They came from long-range, and there was nobody around to sweep up the occasional rebound.

That changed in the second period when Glen Murray scored on a rebound to cut things to 2-1.

“We had ample opportunities in the second period,” Andy Murray said. “We had some point-blank shots and had cut the lead to 2-1 after playing terribly in the first period.”

So now the Kings go on the road, but not without some soul-searching.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who have a lot of questions to ask themselves tonight,” Murray said. “. . . These are big games now, and everybody has to come up big.”

But on Tuesday night, the Ducks--as usual--came up bigger.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

PLAYOFF RACE

The race for final four of eight Western Conference playoff spots is going to the wire (G=Games left):

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No. Team Pt G 5. KINGS 81 9 6. Phoenix 79 10 7. Edmonton 78 9 8. DUCKS 76 8 8. San Jose 76 9 10. Vancouver 74 9 11. Calgary 71 9

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DEFENSE CONTRACT

The Kings say they will reward defenseman Gary Galley with a new contract offer. Page 6

GIVING A DEVIL HIS DUE

New Jersey’s Scott Niedermayer is suspended for 10 games for stick incident. Page 6