A Black Hole Where a Star Should Be

The search began anew Thursday, beneath the rubble of a wrong-stick goal and a corked-skate goal and poor Michael Eisner’s goal.

Where was Paul Kariya?

The search continued, in the welt on Scott Stevens’ face, through the stitches on John Madden’s cheek, around the swelling above Turner Stevenson’s eye.

Anybody seen Paul Kariya?

At a moment when great players rise, the greatest of Ducks again disappeared, his refined gifts absent from the street fight that was the New Jersey Devils’ 6-3 victory in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals.

Nine goals, and he doesn’t score any of them?

Sixty shots, and he doesn’t take any of them?

A gladiator game that featured bloodied good efforts from several desperate players, and he wasn’t one of them?

The Devils lead the series, three games to two, and Paul Kariya is running out of time to become Kirk Gibson. He is running out of chances to be Troy Glaus. He is looking less and less like Kobe Bryant.

Stars carry teams to championships. Despite all the quacking about a system, Kariya is still the Ducks’ star. At $10 million a year, he is certainly compensated like one. He is their highest-paid player, their highest-profile player, their most skilled player.

And he has scored as many points in these finals as Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

They each have one, with Kariya finally scoring with a second assist Thursday on the Ducks’ tying goal in the first period.

“Before a series, we go down a list ... we know who we have to shut down,” said the Devils’ Stevenson. “He was one of their players we knew we had to contain.”

Like a lawn mower contains grass.

Kariya hasn’t scored a goal against the Devils, has averaged only two shots per game, and was on the ice for only 15:34 Thursday.

Has he become so ineffective that nine other Ducks deserved to play more?

And did Disney boss Michael Eisner realize this when he predicted that the Ducks would win here, and then capture the Stanley Cup on Saturday in Game 6?

The boasting has burst. So, too, has the notion that, if necessary, Kariya could break out of the Ducks’ defense-oriented system to dominate a game.

Jamie Langenbrunner, who scored twice for the defensive Devils on Thursday and leads the league with 11 postseason goals, has made that break.

But in this loud, crowded, bumper-to-bumper series, Langenbrunner has been willing to weave through traffic like a motorcyclist on the 405.

Kariya has been unwilling to leave the familiar carpool lane. Even when it’s not moving. Even when he is surrounded and stalled.

“We’re staying in his face,” said the Devils’ Stevens. “We’re not giving him a lot of room.”

And when he does have room, it is only long enough for him to get pounded.

“When he’s in certain areas of the ice, we just take care of him there,” said the Devils’ Madden, whose contrast to Kariya is startling.

Both are offensive players, both play on first lines, yet Madden fought his way to five shots Friday despite taking a skate to his face on one play, and losing his helmet on another play.

Afterward, intermittently closing his eyes and clutching his head, he stated the obvious.

“We find we’re a better hockey club when we take the body,” he said.

Down the hall, a calm Kariya also stated the obvious.

“We need to get more scoring out of our first lines,” he said.

More scoring, and maybe more body? This was painfully evident before a sixth Devil goal that meant nothing, and everything.

Midway through the third period, Duck Sandis Ozolinsh’s shot was blocked by Martin Brodeur, the puck bouncing in front of the net.

Yet no Duck was there for the rebound, because Kariya had been unable to fight his way through the scrum.

Moments later, at the other end of the ice, the Devils’ Brian Gionta belly flopped across the ice to knock the puck to Langenbrunner, who scored.

Conventional wisdom is that it is the Ducks who have stopped Kariya, whose 25 goals this season were a career low. But perhaps in this matter, Kariya deserves an assist.

He scored the winning goal in the monumental playoff-opening three-overtime victory over Detroit. He scored two goals in a splendid Game 3 against Minnesota.

He still knows the location of the net. He still knows how to get there.

He may have only one chance remaining to prove he can do it when it counts most.

“We are not going to get out of the system that has worked for us all year,” maintained Kariya, even as that year was being whittled to a single day.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com