Ducks Continue Dive, Losing 4-0

In a season filled with rock-bottom moments, a 4-0 loss to the Dallas Stars on Sunday brought the Ducks to a subterranean depth.

“It’s not the result, it’s the way we showed up,” Duck goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “We never showed up.”

So the Stars were left with what amounted to a light workout in front of 18,532 people at the American Airlines Center. Dallas moved into fifth place in the Western Conference by methodically dispatching the Ducks, who aided and abetted on three goals.

The Stars picked up two power-play goals, by Jere Lehtinen and Pierre Turgeon, and were given a silver-platter moment by a Mike Leclerc turnover, which resulted in a Mike Modano goal.

That was far more offense than the Stars would need. The Ducks had no quality scoring chances and only 14 shots on goal in what Coach Mike Babcock called “our worst game this season probably.”

The Duck leadership, from general manager on down, certainly felt the weight of this loss. It prompted a postgame meeting by Babcock, who rarely meets with the team immediately after a game.

“The bottom line is every day when you walk out of the rink, you want to be proud about how hard you competed,” Babcock said. “When you don’t, you have to address it.”

The Ducks burst out of the All-Star break, winning four of five games, one against Dallas, which allowed them to make sounds like a playoff contender. That screeched to a halt after losing back-to-back games to teams in the playoff race.

An overtime loss to Nashville on Friday stung, but Sunday downright hurt. The Ducks were nine points out of a playoff spot when they started a three-game winning streak against Vancouver on Feb. 14. They still are nine points out, and the season is a week shorter.

“When you don’t compete, as a manager of a team, you’re obviously disappointed,” General Manager Bryan Murray said. “ ... It looked like we turned the corner. It looked like we were playing hard. My hope is this was just a Sunday afternoon game where their schedule was different and guys get off balance.”

The Stars didn’t seem to have any trouble adjusting to an afternoon game.

“You got to give Dallas credit,” Babcock said.

Lehtinen redirected a Richard Matvichuk shot to give Dallas a 1-0 lead 17 minutes 29 seconds into the first period. Leclerc then left the puck up in the Duck zone eight minutes into the second period and Modano cashed in the mistake, one-timing a shot past Giguere.

“You look at their lineup, we should be able to compete with them every night,” Murray said. “The games should be one-goal games, either way.”

It became a rout when Brendan Morrow scored with 54 seconds left in the second period. That removed any thoughts of the Ducks rallying in the third period, as they did with two goals against Nashville on Friday to force overtime.

“I think what happened today was self-evident,” team captain Steve Rucchin said. “It was a poor effort out of the whole team, except our goaltender. At this point, that’s pretty unacceptable.”