Ducks try to find cure for Cup hangover

The Ducks have a Stanley Cup banner and dazzling rings to remind them who they were.

Who they are, though, is unclear.

Tonight at Staples Center, in the finale of a home-and-home series against the Kings, the Ducks will play their 20th game. They’ve reached .500 (8-8-3) by winning four of their last six.

Their post-Cup struggles continue a pattern set when the season began to drone on into summer: No team has repeated since the Detroit Red Wings in 1997 and 1998, remarkable in a league dominated for decades by a dynasty in Montreal and in the 1980s by the Edmonton Oilers and New York Islanders.

“I’ve talked to the other teams that have won in the last couple of years, Carolina and Tampa Bay,” Ducks General Manager Brian Burke said, “and I asked, ‘How do you avoid the hangover?’

“Their answer was, ‘You don’t.’ ”

The retirement of Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer made the Ducks’ morning-after especially dark. As long as one or both might return -- Niedermayer has said he will decide before Christmas but Selanne has been silent -- the Ducks will be caught between awaiting a rescue that may never come and establishing a new sense of normality.

Their 4-3 shootout victory over the Kings on Tuesday showcased their strengths -- goaltending, skill, physicality -- and their flaws -- a lack of discipline and so-so special teams. They were pushed hard by the Kings, who are becoming known as a resilient and gritty bunch, and the Ducks matched them glide for glide and grunt for grunt.

“I think our identity is going to come from games like this, and we need to get that on a more consistent basis,” center Ryan Getzlaf said.

“We need to develop that identity.”

The first step is to give Niedermayer and Selanne a short but firm deadline to declare whether they’ll return or retire.

Players try to block out the will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, but it’s kept alive by reports that Niedermayer is skating and by Selanne’s occasional visits to the Honda Center. Burke has been generous in indulging the duo’s indecision, but it’s time for them to come back or close the door for good.

Only then will the Ducks be able to flip the calendar from last season to this one and decide where they’re going.

“It’s very difficult,” said defenseman Chris Pronger, spared a suspension tonight when the NHL rescinded the game misconduct he got Tuesday for instigating a fight after overtime expired.

“I think a lot of times people get caught comparing. ‘Last year we did this and last year we did that. This happened here. Last year we won all the one-goal games and this year we’re losing all the one-goal games, the tight games, whereas last year we’d find a way to win.’

“We’re trying to find that identity, find that scoring touch. Find that defensive mind-set. Find all those things that worked so well in the first 30 games last year.”

They won because their style was aggressive and punishing and illuminated by the fire and finesse of Selanne and Niedermayer. When those two unlaced their skates and Dustin Penner departed as a free agent, the Ducks lost 92 goals, too many to make up.

Mathieu Schneider, a fine puck-moving defenseman, has been hurt. Bobby Ryan couldn’t seize a top-six forward spot. Todd Bertuzzi has missed most of the season because of injuries. Coach Randy Carlyle has had to juggle his line combinations to squeeze out some goals, and the lack of consistency is telling.

“It was Cup or bust last year. Every practice, everything we did, that was our focus,” defenseman Sean O’Donnell said.

“And this year we haven’t been able to . . . call it human nature, call it whatever you want to call it, we haven’t been able to get that focus for extended periods of time. We’ve done it at times. We’ve been really good sometimes and looked like our old team. More often than not we haven’t.”

Burke can’t acquire an elite forward because he has little cap room and he can’t spend the money earmarked for Niedermayer’s salary. Nor is he inclined to do anything -- yet.

“I like the character of our group. I know what they can do come crunch time,” he said. “I’m going to be patient with them.”

But not forever.

“I didn’t say I’d be patient all year. I said right now I am,” he said.

In the meantime, the Pacific Division and Western Conference have become fiercely competitive.

The Kings are leading that surge, staging third-period comebacks to beat Dallas last Saturday and take the Ducks to a shootout Tuesday. They’ve won six of their last nine and are establishing a forceful new personality.

“It’s nice knowing that we’ve got the kind of team that can score and come back and battle,” said Michael Cammalleri, who leads the Kings with 12 goals.

“You come out with that kind of an effort, a willingness to do what it takes, you’re going to win a lot of games.”

It’s never wise to become giddy about the Kings, whose history of midseason slumps and late fades kills any hint of euphoria. But at least they’re learning who they are. The Ducks seem stuck on who they were.

Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.