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 began with these bits of knowledge:

* They had four more games against the Kings, who really aren’t their rivals, but more the 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.

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 Tuesday at Staples Center, their third in four games.

The other result 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.

Three of the seven points the Ducks have earned on their flight back from the brink have come at the expense 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. Phoenix, which started the day two points behind the Kings, lost to lowly Chicago, 3-0.

The Kings can’t keep doing this and continue to play after the April 9 end of the regular season, which, alas, has them playing the Ducks.

The Kings are 0-3-1-1 of late 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 the night with a goal and two assists.

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

It was Emerson’s first goal since coming over from Atlanta in a trade eight days earlier.

The goals by Kohn and Kariya were window dressing. The Kings were done.

Donato’s goal, 7:55 into the game, was the kind of fluke the Kings need in their offensive despair of late. While on the power play, he took a puck in the corner, moved slightly over the goal line and shot at an impossible angle.

The puck, however, 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 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, a fact lost on the Kings for a period. They challenged Hebert eight times in the first, 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 became first frustrated, then opportunistic.

With the teams playing four-on-four because of penalties to the Ducks’ Ed Ward and Kings’ Kelly Buchberger, Murray took a puck in the neutral zone and bulled his way past Cullen and Oleg Tverdovsky, both of whom got sticks on the puck to no avail.

Waiting for Murray was Hebert, and he merely scooped up the puck like a first baseman, ending the play for most, but not for Murray. He hung around the net and was there to tip Garry Galley’s shot into Hebert’s pads. Still, the puck came loose, and this time Murray outwrestled Ruslan Salei for it, sweeping it under Hebert’s legs while the goalie was struggling to his feet.

It broke a nine-game goal drought for Murray, who has 24.

The lead was cut to 2-1, partly because of Murray and partly because the Kings had held the Ducks shotless for more than 10 minutes of the second period, including during two power plays.

It would get no better for the Kings. Actually, the only thing that would get better for them was when the score of the Chicago-Phoenix game was flashed on the board.

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PLAYOFF RACE

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

*--*

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

*--*

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