Trying to Break Drought, Fragile Team Hits Road

The Ducks begin a three-game trip today, hoping to regain their shattered confidence with 23-year-old Jean-Sebastien Giguere in goal against the Carolina Hurricanes. Guy Hebert will face Mario Lemieux and the Penguins on Monday in Pittsburgh. Giguere is expected to start Wednesday against the Atlanta Thrashers.

“We’re a vulnerable team right now,” Coach Guy Charron said of the Ducks, who have only one victory in 10 games without Paul Kariya.

Kariya, sidelined since Dec. 17 because of a broken right foot, is scheduled to resume light skating Tuesday and could be fit to play Jan. 21 against the Colorado Avalanche. But the Ducks must endure four more games without him.

“If you look at most of the 10 games, we’ve been in most of them,” Charron said. “Paul Kariya could be generating the scoring we need, but we’re not losing just because he’s not in the lineup. It is affecting us. To the players’ defense, they want to win. We have a lot of young players and they don’t know what else to do right now.”

Tightening up defensively would be a start, according to Charron.

“What our team needs to do is play good defensive hockey,” he said. “We gave up four goals to St. Louis the other night and four goals again [Friday against Buffalo]. This team will have a tough time if we keep giving up four goals a game.”

Staying with the game plan might also help, defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky said. The Ducks freelanced too often and paid the price by giving up two backbreaking goals in the third period of Friday’s 4-0 loss to Buffalo.

“We got discouraged because we didn’t score,” Tverdovsky said. “Instead of pushing harder in the third period, we didn’t stick with the program. We tried to make fancy plays because we couldn’t score the right way and we got burned.”

*

Fans didn’t let his broken foot stop them from voting Kariya into the All-Star game. Kariya will start for the North America team in the 51st All-Star game in Denver on Feb. 4. It will be his fifth All-Star game appearance.

Four members of the Avalanche were also selected to start. Centers Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg, defenseman Ray Bourque and goaltender Patrick Roy were chosen in fan balloting. Sakic, Bourque and Roy will start for the North America team and will be joined by defenseman Chris Pronger of the St. Louis Blues and wingers Theo Fleury of the New York Rangers and Kariya.

Forsberg will start at center for the World team. Dominik Hasek of the Buffalo Sabres will be in goal, with Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings and Sandis Ozolinsh of the Carolina Hurricanes on defense, and Jaromir Jagr of Pittsburgh and Pavel Bure of Florida on the wings.

The remaining players on the North America team will be announced Tuesday, with the remaining players on the World team announced Wednesday.

TODAY

at Carolina

10:30 a.m. PST

* Site--Raleigh Entertainment and Sports Arena.

* Radio--XTRA (690).

* Records--Ducks 14-21-6-4, Hurricanes 17-16-6-2.

* Record vs. Carolina (1999-2000)--0-0-1.

* Update--The Ducks are winless in three games (0-2-1) against the Hurricanes in Carolina since the franchise moved from Hartford. They squandered a 4-1 lead in the third period and were tied, 4-4, in the only meeting between the teams last season in Raleigh. Carolina leads the all-time series, 6-4-1.