Tough Early Stretch Should Pay Off Later

The Mighty Ducks are better than they were last season. But they have the same record as at this time last year.

Their power play looks sharper. But their coach is a little disappointed with it.

Coach Mike Babcock wants improvement every day. But he doesn’t want the Ducks to put too much pressure on themselves when they don’t win.

This is like walking a tightrope carrying an anvil. And the balancing act isn’t going to get any easier. Babcock has said, “We have to be in the hunt after 20 games.” Trouble is, the Ducks face nothing but teams that finished above .500 last season for the next month, starting with the Kings on Wednesday.

“We want to play against the best teams,” Babcock said. “A lot people have said it is negative with the tough schedule. I think it is so positive, it’s not even funny. These teams expose things in us that we’ve got to get better at. We want to win at the same time. You don’t want to pressure up because you didn’t get a win.

“The thing we said on the ice, we’re going to get better today. At the end, I said, ‘Good job, let’s get better again tomorrow and then we’ll play L.A.’ That’s kind of like the exam, just like a kid in school.”

That may sound more like a 12-step program, but the Ducks, off to a 1-2 start, knew they were in for this kind of rehabilitation. A positive sign is, they came home from St. Louis and Dallas with a split, something that was worth celebrating a year ago. Now, they have raised the bar.

“I hope the mind-set has changed,” captain Paul Kariya said. “That’s how we’re going to make the playoffs, by not being satisfied with .500 road trips.”

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When it comes to the power play, the Ducks’ 23.5% conversion rate looks impressive, yet they have had more opportunities. They went scoreless with a five-on-three for 1 minute 16 seconds against Detroit on Sunday. They also came up empty when the Red Wings’ Mathieu Dandenault went off for a double minor.

Part of that can be attributed to new cast members -- Adam Oates, Petr Sykora and Fredrik Olausson.

“We are getting four or five chances every night,” Sykora said. “It doesn’t happen overnight.... You’ll see, after 10-20 games, we’ll be scoring big goals.”

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Dan Bylsma blamed no one but himself for being a healthy scratch Sunday.

“It’s my job to convince the coach what I can do,” Bylsma said. “I haven’t done that the first couple of games.”

Bylsma is one of the team’s most effective penalty killers. He was a healthy scratch five of the first 12 games last season, then didn’t miss another game.