Pain of Cup loss lingers for Senators

Nearly nine months have passed since the Ducks were joyously taking turns lifting Lord Stanley’s Cup into the air and the Ottawa Senators were in a quiet dressing room listening to the party atmosphere reverberate through the Honda Center walls.

The memories of that June night aren’t easily forgotten. They’re particularly painful when you’re on the losing side.

“You don’t get anything for second,” Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips said. “Coming up short is disappointing after how hard we worked just to get that far.”

Tonight marks the first and only regular-season meeting between the teams since the Ducks put a five-game whipping on the Senators in the Stanley Cup finals to claim their first title.

Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere has his own idea on how Ottawa might view its first game back at the scene of its playoff nadir.

“I remember when we faced the New Jersey Devils after we lost to them in the final,” Giguere said. “I wanted to beat them badly. So I’m sure the Senators are going to approach it that way and we’re going to have to match their intensity.

“Pretty much guarantee it’s going to be a pretty intense game.”

The Ducks and Senators have nearly identical records and are playing for high seedings in their respective conferences when the playoffs begin next month.

How each has arrived at this point in the season is markedly different.

The Ducks stumbled about through much of the first three months as they dealt with a number of injuries and the effects of a season-opening trip to London. But they’ve won 10 of 11 since the late-season arrival of Teemu Selanne and are 22-8-3 since Scott Niedermayer returned to the team.

Not only has each star provided a spark, but the two helped provide an element that was missing.

“We’re more confident in ourselves,” Giguere said. “We’re just more focused on the job we need to do to win games. A lot of it had to do with those two guys coming back. But a lot of it had to do with the rest of the players picking it up a little bit.”

The Senators have gone in the other direction.

A 15-2-0 start had many wondering whether they could challenge the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens and their overwhelming 60-8-12 Cup-winning season. Instead, Ottawa is a pedestrian 22-21-6 since that Nov. 15 high watermark.

Along the way, the Senators had a number of issues with mercurial goaltender Ray Emery and the team stopped responding under first-year coach John Paddock. After consecutive shutout losses to Toronto and Boston last week, General Manager Bryan Murray fired Paddock, his former assistant, and returned to the bench.

“We weren’t playing very hard,” said Murray, the former Ducks’ coach and general manager. “We had such a terrific start but we were just dropping.

“Bad habits. Not working as hard as we should have.”

Motivation has been an issue for the Senators, but perhaps not in this game.

“They took something from us last year that we would love to get,” Phillips said. “It might add something to it.”

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The Ducks may get back centers Doug Weight and Todd Marchant, who’ve been out because of shoulder injuries. Weight has sat out the last eight games and Marchant has sat out three.

Weight said he doesn’t think he’s coming back too soon.

“You never know until you get out there and play,” he said. “You’ve got to get in the trenches to find out. . . . I feel like I’m ready to go.”

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Coach Randy Carlyle will be back after a bout with flu that kept him at home Friday during the Ducks’ 3-1 win over Calgary.

“I stuck through one in Nashville and it was the worst experience in my life from behind the bench,” Carlyle said. “The great part about it is our players went out and worked hard.”

TONIGHT

vs. Ottawa, 7, FSN West

Site -- Honda Center

Radio -- 830.

Records -- Ducks 37-23-7; Senators 37-23-6.

Record vs. Senators (2006-07) -- Did not play.

Update -- Martin Gerber, who backed up Giguere for two seasons in Anaheim, will start in goal for Ottawa.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com