Energy, Not Synergy, Is What They Need Most

The Mighty Ducks came off life support in the Stanley Cup finals Saturday. The rewards for their hard work rained down.

Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner popped by the Duck dressing room after the 3-2 victory over New Jersey, presumably without need of map and compass.

Now all the Ducks need is another victory tonight at the Arrowhead Pond to even the best-of-seven series at 2-2. Instead of singing in the rain, they were whistling a merrier tune Sunday.

“You could see it in the dressing room today,” team captain Paul Kariya said. “Guys were a little livelier. Everyone had a hop in their step.”

The incentive is there. Three more victories and Eisner may allow himself to be digitally inserted into the team photo, as he did every season after the first until disappearing after the 1995-96 photo. Whether he would be holding the Stanley Cup or a For Sale sign -- or both -- is to be seen.

But that would be getting ahead of themselves, and the Ducks are focused on one thing.

“This is the most important game of the season,” Kariya said. “You haven’t heard that one before, have you?”

The Ducks needed some reminders about that well-worn philosophy. After earlier denying that the 10-day layoff before the series affected the team, Coach Mike Babcock was ready to admit it had a hand in two pitiful performances in New Jersey, both 3-0 shutouts by the Devils.

“I don’t want to make excuses for anything,” Babcock said. “We did have a vacation there for quite a chunk of time.... It happens all the time in the final. You get here and you don’t play good and you build [the other team] into something they’re not. Let’s worry about us and what we do.”

The Ducks had no worries Saturday, or at least fewer of them. They matched the Devils in effort and chances and brought themselves back from the brink of elimination.

“You play such a long year to get into the playoffs and, before you know it, it’s over,” center Adam Oates said. “I think in the final, it accelerates even more. That’s something [Babcock] has been stressing all along and last night, that was huge. Obviously, being down, 3-0, would be pretty tough. It was a big win. We played better. It gives us a little confidence.”

And with that come words of warning.

“It was only one game,” center Steve Rucchin said. “We’re still behind in the series.”

The New Jersey spin is easy. You can see it coming down the turnpike. All the Devils need is to win tonight and they go back home with a chance to wrap up the series in Game 5 Thursday.

“Of all the games played so far in the playoffs, I thought last night was one of our least competitive games,” Devil center John Madden said. “We’ve got to get back to competing. We’ve got to get back to taking the ice away from them.”

Certainly, there were portions of Saturday’s loss that the Devils could shrug off as well. After all, how many times does goaltender Martin Brodeur gift-wrap a goal the way he did for the Ducks?

In the second period, Brodeur lost his stick to the left of the net and, in a Ripley’s moment, the puck deflected off it and went into the net to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead.

“It seems to me that they think because a team loses, it didn’t show up,” Devil Coach Pat Burns said. “We showed up last night and it came down to an overtime situation. We were maybe a little better, but in Games 1 and 2, we had the breaks.”

Still, the Devils followed form. They have allowed only 10 goals in winning 10 of 11 games at home during the playoffs. They are 4-5 and have given up 22 goals on the road.

Change of venue, though, wasn’t the sole reason for the Ducks’ success.

The first two games of the series had passive-aggressive personalities. As in, the Ducks were passive; the Devils were aggressive.

“I thought we were more physical, but if you don’t get there, you can’t be physical,” Babcock said. “We didn’t skate the first two games. When you start to skate, you get on top of the defense and play in the other team’s zone.”

That changed in Anaheim. The Ducks went on the attack. If there were any doubts, they were erased late in the first period, when the Ducks’ Steve Thomas and Devil defenseman Scott Stevens underwent a role reversal. Stevens skated up the ice and Thomas dropped him in his tracks.

Such moments came when the Ducks decided to perk up.

“You get to the Stanley Cup final and all the people that have been writing real nice things about you suddenly start to bury you, you realize the only people who matter are in the dressing room,” Babcock said. “They’re the people who are with you win or whatever, not just win or win.”

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Some Assembly Required

*--* How the 2003 Mighty Ducks were built with name, position, how they were acquired and this season’s base salary as listed by the NHL Players Assn.: DRAFT Player Pos Salary How player was acquired Paul Kariya LW $10 million (1993, first round, fourth overall) Steve Rucchin C $2.9 million (1994, supplemental, first round, second overall) Mike Leclerc LW $900,000 (1995 third round, 55th overall) Ruslan Salei D $1.6 million (1996, first round, 9th overall) Vitaly Vishnevski D $1.1 million (1998, first round, fifth overall) Niclas Havelid D $830,000 (1999, third round, 83rd overall) Alexei Smirnov LW $1.1 million (2000, first round, 12th overall) Stanislav Chistov C $1.1 million (2001, first round, fifth overall) Martin Gerber G $500,000 (2001, eighth round, 232nd overall) TRADE Player Pos Salary How player was acquired Marc Chouinard C $375,000 Feb. 7, 1996 from Winnipeg with Teemu Selanne and a 1996 fourth-round pick for Chad Kilger, Oleg Tverdovsky and a 1996 third-round pick J.S. Giguere G $900,000 June 10, 2000 from Calgary for a 2000 second-round pick Samuel Pahlsson C $450,000 Nov. 18, 2000, from Boston for Andrei Nazarov and Patrick Traverse Keith Carney D $2.45 million June 19, 2001 from Phoenix for a 2001 second-round pick Petr Sykora RW $3.5 million July 6, 2002, from New Jersey with Mike Commodore, J.F. Damphousse and Igor Pohanka for Oleg Tverdovsky, Jeff Friesen and Maxim Balmochnykh Sandis Ozolinsh D $5.5 million Jan. 30, 2003, from Florida with Lance Ward for Pavel Trnka, Matt Cullen and a 2003 fourth-round pick Steve Thomas RW $1 million March 11, 2003, from Chicago for 2003 fifth-round pick Rob Niedermayer C $2.1 million March 11, 2003, from Calgary for Mike Commodore and J.F. Damphousse FREE AGENT Player Pos Salary Signed Andy McDonald C $575,000 April 3, 2000 Dan Bylsma LW $450,000 July 13, 2000 Kurt Sauer D $1.1 million June 6, 2002 Adam Oates C $3.5 million July 1, 2002 Fredrik Olausson D $1.1 million July 12, 2002 Jason Krog C $500,000 July 17, 2002 Cam Severson LW $350,000 Aug. 22, 2002 -- Roy Jurgens

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