Sluggish Ducks at sea in 4-0 loss

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Try as they might to convince themselves that they’re not feeling the effects of an unprecedented trip to open the season, the Ducks didn’t put forth an convincing argument Friday night.

Looking as if they were skating around in slush rather than ice, the Ducks were inept throughout as the Columbus Blue Jackets rolled to a 4-0 victory at Nationwide Arena.

No one expected a repeat of their NHL-record 12-0-4 start, especially with goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, center Samuel Pahlsson and defenseman Mathieu Schneider out with injuries and with Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne at home watching on television in their favorite chairs.

But being schooled by the Blue Jackets, a franchise that has never played a playoff game? Being outplayed by the Detroit Red Wings is one thing, but this wasn’t supposed to be in the cards.

“Tonight, they flat outplayed us,” Ducks center Todd Marchant said. “We were flat from the start, and we finished flat.

The Stanley Cup champions knew they would be up against it after agreeing to start the season in London and take on additional road games on the way back home.

It didn’t help that they would serve as the marquee home opener for Detroit, Columbus and Pittsburgh, whom they face tonight. The Blue Jackets, who’ve never finished above .500, figured to be the weak link in that chain.

“We knew that coming in,” Marchant said of the schedule. “It wasn’t like it all of a sudden was sprung upon us a couple of days ago. We knew that when training camp started. We knew it when the schedule came out in the summertime.

“It’s just that we’re living it now. We have to bury this game and prevent this from happening again.”

Meanwhile, the Blue Jackets made good use of a handmade replica 1857 Napoleon field cannon that set off the approval of the near-sellout crowd of 17,852.

Rick Nash factored in all of the goals by scoring twice and assisting on two others for the first four-point night of his career. Sergei Fedorov, whom the Ducks happily traded away two seasons ago, and Ron Hainsey each had power-play goals as three of Columbus’ goals came with a man advantage.

The Ducks have now allowed six power-play goals in their first four games. Ilya Bryzgalov was sound again with 33 saves, but he got no support while Pascal Leclaire had it relatively easy in stopping 28 shots for his second career shutout.

“It just seemed that as the game started, we didn’t really get anything going, and they got two quick goals,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We tried to regroup, put a stop to the bleeding. We continued to take penalty after penalty after penalty.”

How grisly was the performance? Columbus had the first 12 shots on goal before Rob Niedermayer registered the Ducks’ first at 16:02 of the opening period.

“With a target as big as ours on our back, if we’re not going to play, [teams] are going to run all over us,” center Ryan Getzlaf said.

At the start, the Ducks were unlucky. Nash’s first goal struck off the right skate of Anaheim defenseman Shane Hnidy as he was backchecking in front of Bryzgalov.

Fedorov banged in a rebound two minutes later. The Ducks torpedoed their chance in the second period when they failed to convert on a five-minute power play, given to them when Columbus rookie Jared Boll elbowed Travis Moen in the face.

Getzlaf took a hooking penalty right at the end to quash that man advantage, and Todd Bertuzzi got caught for tripping in the third when the Ducks were set up for a potential 91-second five-on-three advantage.

“You can’t do it, plain and simple,” Bertuzzi said. “Whether the penalty is legit or not. You can’t put yourself in that spot.”

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TONIGHT

at Pittsburgh, 4:30 PDT, FSN Prime

Site -- Mellon Arena.

Radio -- 830.

Records -- Ducks 1-2-1, Penguins 0-1-0.

Record vs. Penguins (2006-07) -- 1-0-0.

Update -- Already, the Ducks will have played for the second time on consecutive nights, but the Penguins are coming in from Carolina where they played their season opener. Pittsburgh made a 47-point improvement over the 2005-06 season and now has Stanley Cup aspirations behind reigning Hart Trophy winner Sidney Crosby and super-youngsters Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com