A Point Lessens the Pain

The Mighty Ducks can’t seem to lose for losing these days.

Pavel Bure racing up the ice, past three defenders, to score the game-winning goal in overtime should be a terrible thing for a team to take home. The Ducks, while not thrilled at the sight, didn’t leave New York empty-handed.

Bure’s goal gave the New York Rangers a 3-2 victory Tuesday in front of 18,072 at Madison Square Garden. Yet the Ducks return home feeling pretty good about their five-game trip.

The NHL rules served them well. This was the Ducks’ third overtime loss on this trip, following ones at Detroit and New Jersey. Combined with victories over Columbus and Atlanta, the Ducks got seven out of a possible 10 points on the trip.

“I like the NHL point system,” Duck center Matt Cullen said. “Obviously that’s the silver lining for us tonight. We just have to keep on building.”

That erector-set chore had the Ducks swinging one way, then the other Tuesday.

The Ducks were dominated in the first period, falling behind, 2-0. They took control in the second, outshooting the Rangers, 22-6, and tying the score on goals by Cullen and Ruslan Salei. They returned to hibernation in the third.

Then, in overtime, Bure picked up the puck at the end of an active Duck shift, where the Duck players had been on the ice for 50 seconds.

“We didn’t have a chance to change and he had the puck,” Duck center Steve Rucchin said. “That’s not the situation I want to be in.”

Bure raced up ice and into the Duck zone and past three Ducks before slipping a shot past goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere 57 seconds into overtime.

“I’m not a defenseman and that’s one of the fastest guys in the league,” Rucchin said.

The Ducks were left with the somewhat strange feeling of losing so abruptly, yet going home with points in five road games.

“You never feel good anytime you lose, especially in that fashion,” Duck captain Paul Kariya said. “All we can do is take the point and go back home.”

Those points are beginning to add up. The Ducks have picked up at least one in eight consecutive games, tying a franchise record, which has allowed them to meet their first goal, being in the playoff picture 20 games into the season.

“The way the league is now, if you don’t get off to a good start, you could be out of it by Christmas,” Kariya said.

“You want to be in the thing at the quarter pole,” said Coach Mike Babcock, whose team is 6-1-1-3 in the last 11 games. “What did we have after 12 games, four wins? I didn’t know if we should unpack the boxes.”

The good china can now be put on the shelf at the Babcock home. The Ducks’ effort Tuesday was an indication that they are on better footing than in recent seasons.

The Rangers got first-period goals from Mark Messier and Eric Lindros and were poised to bury the Ducks. The Ducks had to survive two minutes of a two-man Ranger advantage late in the period after Kevin Sawyer and Mike Brown had minor penalties tacked onto fighting majors. The Ducks wiggled out of the jam, then turned on the Rangers in the second period.

Cullen made it 2-1 three minutes into the second period with a shot from the blue line that went off the stick of the Ranger defenseman Dale Purinton. Salei tied the score at 18:26 of the period with a blue-line shot after Marc Chouinard won a faceoff in the Ranger zone.