Ducks Are Left Alone to Stew

Steve Rucchin, Mighty Duck team captain, sighed heavily, then began preaching, using almost the same sermon he had used a little more than a week ago.

Coach Mike Babcock recycled his same warnings. Goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere stuck to his opinion.

Repetitive? Yes it was. Another Duck game. Another shabby Duck performance, this time in a 3-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday in front of an announced crowd of 11,678 at the United Center.

Sergei Fedorov had about the only new twist in explaining the inconsistency that has been consistent in the Ducks. He made a brief statement, then abruptly walked away.

“I don’t know right now,” Fedorov said. “I can only tell you about myself. I can’t really say anything about the whole team. Obviously, there is room to improve in my game, and that’s what I intend to do. Thank you.”

The Blackhawks, who had seven rookies on the ice Sunday, might have added their thanks as well.

Steve Sullivan and Kyle Calder scored power-play goals and Scott Nichol scored a goal off a Duck turnover. Rookie Michael Leighton stopped 29 of 30 shots, making enough key saves early to nudge the Blackhawks on their way.

The Ducks were full of self-loathing after a loss to Buffalo on Oct. 24, and were 2-0-1 after that. They have lost consecutive games and went right back on that stump.

“We’re not playing hockey,” Rucchin said. “It’s frustrating. This is a team that can go out and play. There is no question we’re a fragile bunch right now. To [heck] with that, we have to go out there and play hockey and do what is asked of us. A team scores a goal and we feel sorry for ourselves. The attitude definitely has to change....Too many of us are standing around waiting for someone else to do it.”

That all played out Sunday.

Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei went off for holding a stick. Sullivan cashed that in, with a blur of a shot from the blue line through traffic. Giguere, making his first start since the Buffalo game, never had a chance and the Blackhawks had a 1-0 lead 13 minutes 46 seconds into the game.

They doubled that lead 31 seconds later. A Duck turnover put the puck on Mark Bell’s stick. He made a drop pass to Nichol, who whizzed a shot past Giguere.

Calder iced things in the third period with Petr Sykora off for holding. A pileup in front of the Duck net left two players on top of Giguere. Calder slid a soft shot into a mostly open net for a 3-1 lead.

“You need to show up every game,” Giguere said. “The time has come. This is our job. This is what we’re paid to do.”

A point not lost on their coach.

“The measure, to me, of a team is hunger,” Babcock said. “We got to get more desperate.”

The Ducks had a 30-25 edge in shots, but almost all the quality scoring chances they had were handled by Leighton, who was playing his 13th NHL game. Vaclav Prospal scored for the Ducks, firing a shot that deflected off Chicago defenseman Alexander Karpovstev’s stick 6:02 into the third period.

“We’ve gone over it a thousand times,” Rucchin said. “The time for talking is done. We need to go out and do something about it. We need to step up and take some pride and do something about it, myself included.”