A Season of Empty Promise So Far

When Mighty Duck Coach Mike Babcock finished breaking down all the breakdowns in his team’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins on Sunday, he suggested that reporters seek the players’ version of the sad story.

“They’re all in there, eh?” Babcock said, inclining his head toward the locker room.

But when the door swung open, there were as many sitting Ducks -- or standing ones -- as team victories this season: none.

Most were pedaling exercise bikes, which could prove beneficial in a season that’s looking as grueling as the Tour de France.

Five games into the defense of their Western Conference title, the Ducks have one point, that from an overtime loss Sunday that should have been a victory. Their offense has shown signs of life but team defense, their backbone last season, has been atrocious. They served up more turnovers than a bakery Sunday, continuing an alarming trend.

“We’re making the game a little bit too hard for ourselves, and there’s no need for that,” goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said.

It’s tough enough that defenseman Keith Carney, who’s usually matched against any opponent’s top line, has a broken foot, which means lesser defensemen have been moved up to roles they’re not ready to fill. The Ducks, however, can no longer count on the element of surprise that helped them early last season. When the Ottawa Senators and the Bruins visited Southern California last week, they started their backup goalies against the Kings and saved their No. 1 goalies for the Ducks, the opposite of what most teams did last season.

Yes, it’s early, and, yes, the Ducks were 1-3-1 after five games last season and had seven points in their first 10 games before gathering momentum and earning 15 points in the next 10 games. And most Cup finalists have a letdown after a long, emotional season and a short summer. But it’s baffling how a team that seems so good on paper can flail so on the ice.

“They’ve made some good moves but it’s a chemistry thing that’s a problem right now,” said one scout, who asked not to be identified.

“They didn’t stand pat. They got a good player when they signed Sergei Fedorov, and Fedorov for Paul Kariya is a good exchange. Fedorov does more things.... I don’t think you can say the personnel isn’t as good, and I don’t think they’re complacent. It’s just one of those things. You get off to a bad start and you start to press.”

And players abandon the system or let up for an instant, and it all falls apart.

“We’re digging ourselves a hole, and only us, as a group, have to find the way out,” winger Vaclav Prospal said.

They have too much talent to be in this position. Now’s the time to learn if they have the heart to get out of it.

Sabre Dance

A few months ago, the Buffalo Sabres weren’t sure they’d exist this season.

The club fell into bankruptcy and was being operated by the NHL after its owner, Adelphia Chairman John Rigas, was hit with federal fraud charges. Payroll was slashed and key players traded. The team missed the playoffs.

“It’s like you’re just out there, floating,” General Manager Darcy Regier said. “There was so much uncertainty. There was a tremendous number of questions and no answers. We were finding ways for the coaching staff and office staff to hold things together.”

Enter businessman B. Thomas Golisano of Rochester, N.Y., who closed his purchase of the club, including substantial debts, in April for $92 million. Under Golisano and Managing Partner Larry Quinn, the Sabres have stabilized and are a decent team that could fight for an East playoff spot.

“Now there’s direction,” said Regier, whose team plays the Kings on Thursday at Staples Center and the Ducks on Friday at the Arrowhead Pond. “You’re focused on the present and the future. Before, we’d gone into survival mode.”

Regier re-signed restricted free-agent winger Miroslav Satan to a two-year, $10-million deal but said Golisano was lifting spirits, not salaries.

“The biggest change is the atmosphere and attitude,” Regier said. “It didn’t affect one area. It helped in all areas. Now, you can see players have got hope again. It’s unbelievable.”

However, the Sabres are still trying to win back disenchanted fans.

“We’re in a community that really has been challenged economically,” Regier said. “I know that’s true of a lot of towns, but Buffalo has lost a lot of jobs and it’s a greater challenge for our fans to remain fans.

“There’s been a lot of excitement during training camp and into the season, but there’s been a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude. Maybe that will take a little time to wear off.”

The Drought Is On

Teams were shut out 18 times in the season’s first 71 games, including scoreless ties Thursday between the Atlanta Thrashers and New York Rangers and the San Jose Sharks and Philadelphia Flyers, the first time two scoreless games were played on one day since 1934. Through Sunday, teams had combined to score an average of 4.6 goals a game, down from last season’s average of 5.3 and the 5.5 average in 2000-01.

“For 20 years, playing defense is what every team has been able to do,” said Boston assistant coach Wayne Cashman, a member of the high-scoring Bruin teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s. “Not every team can score many goals every night, and there’s no one that doesn’t know how to check anymore.... The goaltenders are better now too.”

Cashman praised the NHL’s efforts to limit obstruction and said scoring would rise as the season progressed. But probably not as much as fans and players would like.

“We draft young players who score 150 points in juniors and say, ‘We have to teach you how to play defense,’ ” he said. “We draft them because of those skills and then we don’t let them use those skills. The game lately is one where an average player can check a great player. That’s what the trap is all about. If you just played man to man, you couldn’t do it.”

What in the World?

The fledgling World Hockey Assn. is discussing franchise sites in North America and Europe and working on sponsorships but won’t release details until next month, a league official said last week.

The WHA plans to debut next season, when it hopes the NHL will be mired in a lengthy lockout. However, it has offered little information besides announcing that Bobby Hull will be its commissioner and that its teams will have a $10-million salary cap and one exemption for a star player.

Tim Keighan, the WHA’s executive director, said league officials would gather in Florida soon to plot their course. “We’re planning a series of announcements,” he said.

The WHA2, designed as a minor league feeder for the WHA, is scheduled to begin play Nov. 6 with teams in Orlando, Jacksonville, Miami, Lakeland, Fla.; Macon, Ga., and Pelham, Ala.

Slap Shots

Goalie Arturs Irbe, who led the Carolina Hurricanes to the Stanley Cup finals in 2002, was sent to Johnstown of the East Coast Hockey League last week after the team couldn’t find him a spot in the American Hockey League. He will still earn his NHL salary of $2.7 million, and he’s owed $2.5 million next season.

The ECHL, incidentally, made visors and face shields mandatory for players. The NHL Players Assn. has resisted that on the grounds it would deprive players of personal choice.

Michael Rupp, who scored the Cup-clinching goal against the Ducks last June, couldn’t crack the New Jersey Devils’ lineup this season until the third game.... Colin Campbell, the NHL’s director of hockey operations, sent a memo to clubs saying referees would watch for slashes on the hands and arms, as well as hitting from behind. Consistent enforcement would be welcome, instead of the usual vigilance that gradually fades.

Campbell’s son Gregory made his NHL debut last week for Florida -- whose coach is Mike Keenan, who coached the Rangers when the elder Campbell was an assistant there.

Al MacInnis, a Norris Trophy winner and 12-time All-Star, might be out of the St. Louis Blues’ lineup the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on both eyes last Friday. This figured to be the final season for MacInnis, who turned 40 in July, and it’s a shame if his career ends this way.

The Nashville Predators, averaging 12,176 fans, and the Sharks, whose crowd of 14,807 Saturday was their smallest in 10 years, are among many clubs seeing more empty seats than usual for this time of the season.