Duck Loss Plays Like a Rerun

There was a long pause, stretching several seconds into the post-game rehash.

Mighty Duck forward Petr Sykora obviously was thinking hard about a Hockey 101 question: Are you guys, especially on the power play, shooting enough?

Dead air.

Sykora hesitated, much like the Ducks did throughout a 2-1 loss to San Jose on Sunday at Arrowhead Pond.

For the 13th time this season, the Ducks scored fewer than two goals. Five power plays went by with hardly a threat. Another step backward was in the books, as the Ducks continued to make a molehill out of what they hoped would be a mountain of a season.

Clearly there was a lot to mull over.

“We had quite a few shots, wrist shots from the blue line,” said Sykora, who scored the Ducks’ only goal. “It didn’t happen for us. The power play is: Shoot from the blue line, go to the net, get a rebound. We didn’t get the rebounds tonight.

” I don’t know what to do,” Sykora said. “Maybe battle more in front, get those bounces in front of the net. We had chances and we didn’t score. That’s why we lost the game.”

That scenario had to seem familiar to the announced 14,853, who witnessed a repeat of too many past games.

The plot line: The Ducks, fresh from a gritty victory over Colorado, failed to take the next step to right their meandering season.

“I Love Lucy” shows aren’t rerun as much as these types of Duck performances.

The Ducks gave up the first goal. They had few quality chances. They came up empty on the power play -- they have four goals in their last 38 power plays.

“The thing is, everybody knows we haven’t sustained things,” defenseman Kurt Sauer said. “It’s like beating a drum. You can only beat it so much. It’s a game of inches. We haven’t measured up to it.”

The Ducks, in fact, seem about a yardstick behind.

Patrick Marleau blasted in a one-timer from the left faceoff circle for a 1-0 lead 11 minutes 49 seconds into the first period. The Ducks have a 1-9-1 record when trailing after one period.

Vincent Damphousse scored a power-play goal on a slick backhander for a 2-0 lead 5:28 into the second period. The Ducks are 1-11-2 when trailing after two periods.

Cut. Print. That was a wrap.

“They scored the first goal, I think that’s huge,” Sykora said. “It always seems to be that. We get scored on first all the time. We have to get away from that.

“Right now in this league everyone plays so tight defensively, it’s tough to create anything after. We have to be ready to score the first goal; do that, we have a much better chance to win a hockey game.”

The Ducks had a chance to win Sunday, tie or even lose in overtime.

Sykora worked to get to the net and was there to jam a rebound past goaltender Evgeni Nabokov to cut the Shark lead to 2-1 5:39 into the second period, which should have been a huge lift coming just 11 seconds after Damphousse’s goal.

“The third period, not much happened,” Coach Mike Babcock said. “We never got to the net enough. I thought their [defense] was able to keep us on the outside....

“How did we score the one goal? We threw it at the net from a bad angle. We went there and paid the price. That’s how you score. We talk about it every single day.”

At some point, talk becomes cheap.

“You can talk about it,” defenseman Niclas Havelid said. “It’s another thing to do it.”

Sykora has quick answers for that.

“You have to want to create, want to score, want to come up with those goals,” he said. “We need to win some hockey games pretty soon here.”