Ducks lose their stride against the Stars again, 5-0

Now that a rough October is in the distance, the Ducks started the new month with two victories and actually went into Monday night’s game against the Dallas Stars with a chance to take over first place in the Pacific Division.

It doesn’t say much about the jumbled mess that is the Pacific, given the Ducks were also trying to climb back to .500. Still, they were feeling as good about themselves as they have in weeks.

And then came the game.

Dallas again brought the worst out of the Ducks as the Stars took a late first-period lead and blew the game wide open in the second to deal Anaheim its most lopsided loss of the season, 5-0, at the Honda Center.

So much for the Ducks’ modest two-game winning streak. After a few steps forward, it’s back to square one.

“That’s not the type of game you want to see, especially after the last couple,” Ducks captain Chris Pronger said. “I thought we were making strides and starting to do some good things out on the ice.

“Today, as a group, we weren’t able to accomplish anything.”

The Ducks (6-8-2) play their next eight games against division opponents, but Dallas already has two wins against them. One of their worst games was in Dallas on Oct. 20 when they went down meekly, 3-1, in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score.

Their performance Monday made for a challenge to the throne of “worst game of the season.”

Consider that the Stars haven’t exactly enforced their will in a division full of teams trying to find themselves. Dallas (6-6-2) was ready to hit the road after losing all three games on its last homestand.

Now the Stars are tied with the Ducks and Kings, all three sitting one point behind San Jose, which is 7-6-1.

“They’ve beaten us twice, and they’ve handled us easily,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said of Dallas.

It wasn’t so bad early. The Ducks controlled play for the first 10 minutes and were their usual physical selves, with gritty winger Brad May winning a fight with Stars forward Krys Barch to energize the 17,174 in attendance.

But two power-play chances went dry and Dallas got a late man advantage as a result of center Ryan Getzlaf’s roughing penalty. Mike Ribeiro managed to tip in a loose puck past Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere during a scramble in front of the net.

Things quickly went from bad to worse. Jussi Jokinen, Brenden Morrow and Jere Lehtinen all scored in the second and Giguere was pulled, with Ilya Bryzgalov playing the third period. Chris Conner added his second career goal for Dallas.

“We were down one and we just didn’t play to our system,” Ducks forward Rob Niedermayer said. “When you don’t do that against a team like Dallas, they’ll just pick you apart.”

Meanwhile, the offense went back into hibernation.

Five goals in Saturday’s night win at Phoenix appeared to be the sign of a frustrated team breaking out of its slump. Instead, Marty Turco had an easy night, making 19 saves to hand the Ducks their fourth shutout and notch the 31st of his career.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com