Ducks Fall to Sharks

With a victory over San Jose Wednesday night, the Mighty Ducks would have finished their longest home stand of the season with a .500 record.

But with No. 1 center Steve Rucchin out of the lineup because of a lower leg injury, Anaheim did not have enough firepower to hold off the Sharks, who jumped to an early lead and never looked back in a 4-2 victory before an announced crowd of 9,852 at Arrowhead Pond.

San Jose goaltender Evgeni Nabokov made 27 saves and the Sharks used goals by Teemu Selanne, Adam Graves, Marco Sturm and Vincent Damphousse to defeat the Ducks for the second time in two meetings this season.

“Of course you want to win more games [than the two Anaheim did over the homestand],” Duck center Samuel Pahlsson said about the Ducks, who dropped to 6-9-3-0 overall and finished the eight-game stand with a 2-4-2-0 record.

Ruslan Salei and Jeff Friesen scored for the Ducks, who will start a six-game East Coast trip at Columbus on Friday.

In order to prevent the Sharks from winning at the Arrowhead Pond for the second time within two weeks--San Jose won, 4-2, on Oct. 31--the Ducks wanted to get off to a fast start.

Anaheim, however, did just the opposite.

The Ducks waited only one minute, 18 seconds before allowing San Jose to take a 1-0 lead and it came on a goal from former Duck Selanne, who scored for the fourth time this season.

The Sharks extended their lead to 2-0 midway in the first period on Graves’ first goal of the season. He scored when he picked up a wild rebound from a Gary Suter slap shot, which had bounced off the backend boards.

After giving up two early goals, Duck goaltender Steve Shields settled down and stepped up big on a San Jose 5-on-3 two-minute power-play opportunity. Shields made a couple of nice saves and kept the Sharks from blowing the game open before Nabokov was really tested.

Anaheim finally got back into the game when defenseman Salei scored his second goal of the season 15:33 into the opening period. Pahlsson got the play started for the Ducks when he skated into the San Jose zone and found winger Sergei Krivokrasov by the left circle. Krivokrasov then made a one-hand stick pass to Salei, who beat Nabokov from the slot.

The Ducks started the second period with a great opportunity to tie the score but they failed to take advantage of a 1:56 power play. Instead they allowed the Sharks to stretch their lead to 3-1 when winger Sturm gobbled up a loose puck and scored a short-handed breakaway goal 1:10 into the period.

“The power play is killing us. We should at least be even and not minus on your power play,” Paul Kariya said about Anaheim, which went scoreless in seven power play opportunities against the Sharks.

“The power play killed us all homestand long.... I just don’t have the answers right now. [The power play] has to get going.”

During their homestand, the Ducks may have lost twice to the Sharks and suffered one-goal defeats to Colorado and Detroit but they did beat Chicago and tie Calgary, two teams off to great starts this season.

“I think we’re better,” Anaheim Coach Bryan Murray said before the game. “We’ve played hard and we’re moving the puck a little better. More people are involved in somewhat more important roles than we had earlier in the season.

“But I do believe there is another step to be made by this hockey team. We have to be able to play against good teams on a regular basis but we’re going to have to play a little better and score more goals [to win those games].”

Scoring goals is still a problem for the Ducks. And one reason for the inconsistency on offense has been the team’s lack of traffic in front of the net.

“Sometimes we are looking for that perfect pass or perfect goal,” Murray said.

“But the way it is in the NHL right now, you have to get a lot of goals with traffic at the net with tips and screens. You don’t get a lot of pretty plays.”