Sharks Have Ducks’ Number

All those thinking about buying Mighty Duck playoff tickets, hold your horses.

The long faces and short answers to questions Thursday made it clear there is work left to do on this reclamation project. Whether this is an omen or a one-night glitch will be played out.

There was little evidence that the Ducks have risen from the rubble. Nor was there any indication that the San Jose Sharks are a team in crisis. This was business as usual with a 4-1 Shark victory, their 10th in the last 12 games against the Ducks.

The 17,496 had to leave HP Pavilion thinking that all the talk about the Ducks being a serious playoff contender was much ado about nothing.

Owen Nolan, who had only two goals in his last 17 games, had two in the second period. Goalie Evgeni Nabokov stopped 19 of 21 shots. Teemu Selanne scored his seventh goal and 14th point in the last 11 games. The Sharks put in the time and effort on the boards.

The Ducks, meanwhile, arrived from the Christmas break bearing a few gifts.

“We’re a skating team and we didn’t do that tonight,” Coach Mike Babcock said. “Christmas break is over. They executed. We looked a step slow.”

That was never more evident than on the goal that put the game in the Sharks’ back pocket.

The Ducks had an opportunity to get back into the game late in the second period. Trailing, 2-0, Matt Cullen’s one-man act cut the deficit in half. He dug the puck out of the corner, slipped through two Shark defenders and whipped a shot past Nabokov at 18 minutes 11 seconds.

All that hard work was wiped out in a farcical moment 24 seconds later. Defenseman Ruslan Salei lost control of the puck in front of the net. Marco Sturm picked it up for the Sharks and Salei tried to make up for the mistake by hacking at Sturm from behind. All he managed to do was to hit Sturm’s stick, which sent the puck trickling on net and between the legs of goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

“Sometimes, teams get lucky,” Salei said. “We have scored some lucky goals recently. I don’t know how he got it in. It’s my fault, but we were unlucky.”

And before the Ducks could say “Huh?” the game was lost.

“We got to get off vacation,” team captain Paul Kariya said. “We played horrible. That was probably our worst game of the year.”

The Ducks went into their three-day Christmas break one of the hottest teams in hockey, winning six of seven games. Their special teams were sharp. Giguere had four shutouts in the previous six games.

Then post-holiday blues took over.

“I had a bad night,” Giguere said. “I have to make the first save. All four of their goals were on the first shot.”

The Ducks are 1-6-2 against Pacific Division teams, with their only victory coming against last-place Phoenix. They are winless in two games against the Sharks and are 0-2-1 against the Kings, two teams that the Ducks are competing with for a playoff spot.

Three days off seemed to take some steam out of the Ducks’ recent hot streak and they were fortunate to get out of the first period with a scoreless tie. The Sharks were dominating and that became clear in the second period.

Nolan got the puck at the blue line and skated past the Ducks’ most reliable defenseman, Keith Carney, who fell down. That allowed Nolan a free lane to the net. He faked, waited, then slipped a backhand shot past Giguere for a 1-0 lead 2:16 into the period.

Nolan made it 2-0 by burying a slap shot midway through the period.