Ducks pay the price

So this is what the Ducks call the start of defending their Stanley Cup?

Game 1 of the Western Conference series was a rude awakening administered by the Dallas Stars, who scored on three of their first four power plays and coasted to a stunning 4-0 rout of the reigning champions Thursday night at the Honda Center.

All in all, it was a ghastly performance by the Ducks. The home-ice advantage that was gained by earning the fourth seeding in the Western Conference is now gone and Game 2 on Saturday night has suddenly become a must-win situation.

“There’s probably lots of ways to explain it,” Ducks defenseman Scott Niedermayer said, assessing their performance. “Obviously our penalty kill really did not do a good job. They stuck with their game plan and that’s the story of the game. We probably did not.

“It’s going to take a lot better effort on our part in two nights to try to get a win. That has to be our focus now. There’s obviously nothing we can do about what just happened.”

The Ducks insisted over the past two days that they would have the same will that propelled them to 16 wins in 21 playoff games of their triumphant 2006-07 season. Twenty wins in their final 26 games appeared to indicate that they were getting their postseason face on.

Meanwhile, fifth-seeded Dallas ended with a less-than-stellar 4-8-2 playoff push that dropped it to a third-place finish in the Pacific Division and raised more questions about its first-round playoff exits the last three seasons.

Instead, the Ducks are left with all the questions. Using a script that helped them win five of the eight regular-season meetings, the Stars ate up the Ducks’ penalty-killing unit as all four goals came with the man advantage.

“It seemed that once we took the first penalty, it seemed to change the whole momentum of the game,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said.

With star defenseman Sergei Zubov recovering from sports hernia surgery, the Stars showed that they didn’t need their power-play quarterback.

As he had done while Zubov was injured much of the season, Stephane Robidas stepped in and provided an early lift that got Dallas going.

Robidas assisted on both Stars goals in the first period. The defenseman made a move around Chris Pronger and threw a shot on goal that Steve Ott managed to get his stick on to fool Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere while Travis Moen was in the box for elbowing.

An ill-advised cross-checking penalty in the offensive zone by Ducks center Brian Sutherby also proved costly. Loui Eriksson drilled a one-timer past Giguere after getting a feed from Brad Richards.

The most penalized team in the league for the second consecutive season began to show its frustration near the end of the first. Teemu Selanne, Todd Bertuzzi and Mathieu Schneider all got roughing penalties in scrums with Ott and Phillippe Boucher.

“Pretty much every game that we lose to those guys, we spend way too much time in the box,” Selanne said. “Our penalty kill, you can’t really blame just that. We took too many stupid penalties.”

The second period was much of the same, only this time it was Brenden Morrow, Jere Lehtinen and Mike Ribeiro having all the fun.

Lehtinen took advantage of another poor penalty kill by the Ducks as he was open in the slot to receive a pass from Ribeiro and rip a one-timer past Giguere. Morrow capped the annihilation with another power-play goal assisted by Ribeiro and Lehtinen.

Morrow finished with a three-point night, and Robidas and Ribeiro each had the two assists.

“We wanted to capitalize and try to keep them on their heels, instead of them coming after us,” Morrow said. “Over the last month or so, we were struggling. So to get that one off our back was pretty huge.”

Giguere had a 31-13 postseason record, but he took a beating under a 37-shot assault. In contrast, Marty Turco had a relatively stress-free night as he made 23 saves for his fourth career playoff shutout.

The Ducks’ offensive attack, however, was missing in action as they went 19 1/2 minutes without a shot on goal between the middle of the first and second periods.

Selanne did his best to put a positive spin on the situation.

“It’s like four rounds in golf,” he said. “You have one bad round. You just have to keep sticking to the plan and be better next time.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com

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DUCKS VS. DALLAS

Stars lead the best-of-seven series, 1-0

Game 2, Saturday

at the Honda Center

7 p.m., FSN Prime