Joffrey Lupul’s return can’t help Ducks in 3-0 loss to Phoenix

Joffrey Lupul waited a year for this?

After undergoing two back surgeries and battling a debilitating blood infection that left him bedridden for almost two months, the Ducks winger on Sunday resumed an NHL career that once seemed lost. And his teammates welcomed him back with what may have been their most listless effort of the season in a 3-0 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes at the Honda Center.

“Pissed off? Yeah, that’ll do it,” captain Ryan Getzlaf snapped when asked to sum up the mood in the dressing room after the Ducks were shut out for the second time in three days. “It’s frustrating when you’re out there trying to work as hard as you can and things aren’t happening.

“It’s not a matter of putting the puck in.”

But that would help.

Not counting an empty-net goal in their win over Florida last week, the Ducks have taken 73 shots on goal without a score in their last seven periods. Even Lupul couldn’t change that despite playing a respectable 14 minutes 28 seconds in which he took three shots.

“I was definitely excited,” he said. “It’s been a long time. [But] once the game started, it was just business as usual.”

Unfortunately, that held true for the Ducks as well. For Coach Randy Carlyle, the turning point Sunday was the opening puck drop.

“We don’t really have a starting point,” he said. “Seems like it takes 10 minutes for us to get warmed up. And that’s not acceptable.

“Then it just seemed like the frustration level got up and we just couldn’t execute.”

In fact, the further the Ducks fell behind, the more frustrated they became. And they fell behind quickly, with Taylor Pyatt opening the scoring midway through the first period by deflecting Sami Lepisto’s one-timer from just inside the blue line past the Ducks’ Jonas Hiller.

Shane Doan doubled the lead with a power-play goal at 17:23 of the second while Andy Sutton was serving one of nine Ducks penalties on the night.

Yet Phoenix’s final goal may have been the most frustrating of all, coming just seconds after the Ducks had pulled Hiller for an extra attacker only to watch the puck bounce past Lupul on the right boards, where it was collected by Lee Stempniak, who scored the empty-netter.

“Right from the start we weren’t [engaged],” Getzlaf said. “We’ve got to take that upon ourselves and be ready to go. Myself included.”

Include Teemu Selanne in that as well. The team’s second-leading goal-scorer a year ago, Selanne sat out his second consecutive game after aggravating a groin injury and the Ducks haven’t scored in his absence.

“Oh, you always miss a 600-goal scorer,” Carlyle said of Selanne, whose 614 goals lead all active players.

But although Selanne was expected to skate in practice Monday, Carlyle knows better than to put all of his hopes on one player’s return. After all, it didn’t work with Lupul.

“We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and just say, ‘Hey, we’re responsible for our actions and we’re going to hold [people] accountable,’ ” he said. “The bottom line is, we didn’t play anywhere near what’s required.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com