Ducks Have Devil of a Time Sustaining Any Momentum

This game would have been easy to walk away from and shrug. Mighty Duck captain Paul Kariya was having none of that Wednesday.

The Ducks lost, 5-2, to the New Jersey Devils, the defending Stanley Cup champions--at full strength with the return of defenseman Scott Niedermayer and center Jason Arnott after long holdouts.

The Ducks lost their goalie when Guy Hebert left because of a strained left shoulder in the second period.

But to Kariya, they lost another day on the schedule.

The Ducks played well, matched the Devils blow for blow in front of an announced crowd of 13,932 at the Arrowhead Pond. There were moments, though, that reminded the Ducks why they missed the playoffs last season and the Devils won the cup.

“You can’t be satisfied with anything when you lose,” Kariya said. “We played a good game. But we made mistakes and they capitalized on them. We have to nip this in the bud.”

The difference between the Ducks and Devils was small, but noticeable. The Ducks ended an eight-game winless streak with back-to-back victories over the weekend. They couldn’t sustain the momentum.

The Devils ended a six-game winless streak with back-to-back overtime victories. They managed to move forward.

Jay Pandolfo scored two goals. Niedermayer and Arnott made successful returns from their holdouts. Arnott had a goal and two assists. Niedermayer had an assist. Goalie Martin Brodeur stopped almost everything, making 26 saves.

“They did the little things a little better than we did,” Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “They are the Stanley Cup champions. They didn’t do any fancy-Dan things. They just kept it simple. We made a couple mistakes and that won the hockey game for them”

A couple of them were glaring.

Defensemen Vitaly Visnevski and Pavel Trnka allowed Pandolfo to slip in untouched. He picked up the puck after a kind bounce off the boards and lifted a backhander past Hebert to break a 1-1 tie at 8 minutes 42 seconds of the second period.

“That was a little bit of a lapse by the defense,” Hartsburg said. “But that wasn’t a good goal. What was bad was someone should have prevented him from getting in there. That was a mistake by our guys.”

Hartsburg was not one to be casting too many stones. He had a gaffe of his own.

Hebert was knocked to the ice and stayed down after a pileup in front of the net, where he appeared to be hit by teammate German Titov. Backup goalie Dominic Roussel had his mask on and stick in hand, ready to go. But Hartsburg let Hebert continue.

Moments later Scott Gomez whipped a shot past Herbert for a 3-1 lead at 16:15. Roussel then entered the game.

“He told the trainer he was fine and I trust the trainer,” Hartsburg said. “But you could tell he wasn’t right.”

Hebert is listed as day-to-day. Jean-Sebastien Giguere will be recalled from Cincinnati.

“Someone ran into me and I felt something pop,” Hebert said. “I wanted to take a couple minutes to see if I could shake it off. I could have continued playing, but it wasn’t going to get any better.”

The Ducks had one shot through the first nine minutes, but managed four in 10 seconds to tie the score at 1-1.

Matt Cullen went behind the net and managed to center. He, Mike Leclerc and Teemu Selanne went into a frenzy in front of the net and all three got off shots that a sprawling Brodeur managed to keep out. Selanne finally managed to slip the puck under Brodeur’s legs for his third goal in as many games.