Ducks Caught on the Rebound

This was OK ... really.

After New Jersey’s Jamie Langenbrunner banged home a rebound for a 3-2 overtime victory Tuesday, the Mighty Ducks were left in the basement of the Continental Airlines Arena contemplating the yin and the yang.

They battled and came away with a point against the New Jersey Devils, so high-fives all around.

Of course ...

They collapsed, letting a 2-0 third-period lead get away in a matter of seconds. They then let the game get away when Langenbrunner scored his second goal of the game to send the announced 15,043 home relieved.

“This [stinks],” Duck forward Kevin Sawyer said. “We expect to win every game. It’s not just guys saying that now. We really feel that way.”

So in the silver-lining department, the Ducks made their purchase.

Their three-game winning streak ended. But was that all bad? After all, their last four road games have resulted in points, including victories at Boston and Colorado.

“It’s great to see that our guys are frustrated,” Coach Mike Babcock said. “At the start of the season, if you’d told these guys we’d get a point in New Jersey, they would have done cartwheels. Now they are starting to think they might be good. I think it is a real positive thing.”

Of course, that will be determined more on Thursday, when the Ducks play at Columbus, where they are 0-4. But the early returns were in favor of the Ducks, with the Ducks tabulating.

“The key for me is we got a great lesson and we got a point,” Babcock said. “We didn’t sneak a point out of here. We dominated a lot of the game, really dominated. Yet you would liked to close the door on it.”

The door seemed slammed when the Ducks’ Marc Chouinard stripped Scott Niedermayer of the puck at center ice, headed into the Devil zone and fired a shot that went off goalie Martin Brodeur’s arm pit and into the net.

The Ducks had a 2-0 lead six minutes 54 seconds into the third period. Then things fell apart for them.

“Once we got the two-goal lead, it was almost like we were satisfied with it,” goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “New Jersey knows what it takes to win. They kept playing hard and good things happened to them.”

Exhibit A in that case took 29 seconds.

Langenbrunner chipped in a Jim McKenzie pass at 7:49, ending Giguere’s shutout streak at 131:37. Then Jeff Friesen passed to Scott Gomez on the wing. Gomez fired a shot past Giguere to tie the score at 8:18.

In overtime, Scott Stevens burst into the Duck zone and fired a shot that bounced off Giguere.

Langenbrunner raced past defenseman Keith Carney and hit the rebound into the open net.

“I thought [Giguere] froze the puck,” Carney said. “I was just trying to stay with [Langenbrunner], but I thought the play was over. He did a good job getting his stick on it.”

The Ducks have been this way before, most recently when they blew a 3-1 third-period lead against Edmonton and lost, 4-3, in regulation Oct. 26.

This one, though, was different, the Ducks said, beyond the fact that they managed a point in the first game of a five-game trip.

“In Edmonton, we were still trying to find our identity,” Carney said. “We expect to win. We are confident every night.”

Which wouldn’t change from one game, was the unanimous opinion in the Duck dressing room.

“I think it almost goes the other way,” Babcock said. “Tonight, we come in here to play the Mighty New Jersey Devils and we found out we might be mighty too.”