Ducks Fall Flat in Return From Break

There’s a growing sense that the NHL won’t take another two-week break to send its players to the Winter Olympics after 2010. After their performance Wednesday night against the Detroit Red Wings, the Mighty Ducks probably wished the league had already ended the practice.

From the first drop of the puck, the Ducks were off their game and the top team in the Western Conference jumped out to a two-goal lead in the first period and made it stand up in a 2-0 victory at the Arrowhead Pond.

The same players were wearing their same Duck uniforms but they hardly resembled the group that had entered the Olympic break on an 8-3-2 run with a rink full of confidence that came with the surge.

It wasn’t what they had in mind to start a four-game homestand leading off the stretch run.

“We need to be more prepared than that,” said goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere. “There’s no excuse. We’re all professionals and we should be ready for these kind of games.”

At the least, the Ducks (27-20-11) experienced what Finland went through Sunday in losing the gold-medal game to Sweden. Detroit opted to send five of its players off the winning Swedish team straight to Anaheim.

Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Mikael Samuelsson and Niklas Kronwall were excused from attending Tuesday night’s loss in San Jose after going to Stockholm for a national celebration.

The move had the desired effect as Holmstrom and Zetterberg scored and assisted on the other’s goal, and Lidstrom also had an assist.

“From a personal point of view, are you going to tell them not to go to Sweden after they’ve won the gold medal?” Detroit Coach Mike Babcock said. “There’s not a chance in the world. They earned that.”

The first 20 minutes went from adventurous to disastrous for the Ducks.

Giguere was forced to make two saves in the opening minute before the Red Wings put a shot on goal. He saved Francois Beauchemin when the defenseman nearly put the puck in his own net and later reached back and stopped the puck from heading toward the net he vacated on a delayed penalty.

But he also had his own misadventures. On one play, Giguere went behind the net and sent a lazy clearing pass that Brendan Shanahan picked off, but the Ducks were let off the hook because the Red Wings didn’t have another player trailing the play.

“There were some turnovers,” he said. “It was pretty ugly out there. I, myself, had a couple of turnovers.”

Their good fortune could last only so long.

As he exited the penalty box after serving a Red Wings’ bench minor, Holmstrom took a touch pass from Zetterberg and went high with a backhanded shot over Giguere’s left shoulder for his career-high 20th goal.

After defenseman Vitaly Vishnevski went off for tripping at 8:08 of the first period, the Red Wings needed only six seconds to score a goal that could have been cued right from Sweden’s win Sunday in Turin, Italy.

Lidstrom uncorked a slapshot from the point with Holmstrom stationed in front of Giguere and as the shot kicked off the goalie’s foot, Zetterberg was there for an easy tap-in.

The Ducks finally woke up, but they failed to cash in on a number of odd-man rushes in the first period. Detroit goalie Chris Osgood made 24 saves for his second shutout of the season and 43rd of his career.

“We seemed to struggle with the puck in situations and we didn’t react [well],” Duck Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We were frustrated by our lack of offense.”

About the only highlight was Scott Niedermayer’s appearance after undergoing knee surgery and Sandis Ozolinsh’s first game as a Duck since Nov. 27 following a stay in the NHL’s substance abuse program.

“No problems at all,” Niedermayer said of his right knee. “We’ll see [today]. Feels good.”