Ducks’ loss continues swoon as team sees doom

Maybe Tuesday night wasn’t the end of the Ducks’ playoff hopes, but it certainly felt like it. It sounded like it too, with boos echoing from the crowd of 13,700 at the Honda Center.

The Ducks’ 5-2 loss to a Columbus team that was blown out by the Kings, 6-0, the night before left them in 13th place, seven points out of the final Western Conference playoff spot with 16 games left.

Asked whether it would take a miracle to reach the postseason now, winger Bobby Ryan didn’t mince words.

“Probably,” he said. “The odds aren’t in our favor.”

It isn’t only the ground the Ducks would have to make up or the number of teams they would have to overtake, it is the way they have performed coming out of the Olympic break.

“You can’t come out of the break looking to make a playoff run and drop four straight. It’s unacceptable,” Ryan said, calling the run “ugly” and “embarrassing.”

Goaltender Jonas Hiller, pulled in the second period after giving up three goals, said the team has to press on.

“I mean, at the end, we have to believe, as long as it’s possible,” Hiller said. “You know, the way we play, we’ve still got chances to win games. All we can do is pick up our game. We know we almost have to win all the games left, but as long as it’s possible we believe that, and we’ve got to work for that. It’s over when it’s over.”

Against a Columbus team playing without leading scorer Rick Nash, who suffered an undisclosed lower-body injury against the Kings, the Ducks fell behind, 3-0, on goals by Derek Dorsett, Jakub Voracek and Fedor Tyutin.

Coach Randy Carlyle tried to disrupt the vibe by pulling Hiller for Curtis McElhinney, not that the Ducks were putting up much opposition in front of Hiller.

Their frustration spilled over into fights and shoving matches, and Ryan Getzlaf, the Ducks’ leading scorer, fought the Blue Jackets’ Tyutin at the end of the second, stirring his teammates to bang their sticks in appreciation.

Still, the Ducks didn’t get on the scoreboard until 10:49 remained on a goal by defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, acquired from Edmonton at the trading deadline.

The game got interesting when Getzlaf scored from the slot to cut the lead to one with 5:04 left.

But Columbus made it 4-2 on a power play goal by Antoine Vermette with 1:58 to play, and the Blue Jackets added a final power-play goal with 17 seconds left when Derick Brassard scored.

Goaltender Mathieu Garon made 36 saves for Columbus.

The Ducks, only three points out of a playoff spot before the Olympic break, have stumbled badly coming out of it, alternately blowing leads and failing to get them.

“The easy thing is to give up and get down,” Getzlaf said, adding the team would try not to.

As for whether the fact that eight Ducks played in the Olympics contributed to the swoon, who was to say?

“I don’t think it’s going to be an excuse,” Hiller said. “We’re just not playing well enough as a team. It doesn’t really matter who was in the Olympics and who was not.”

Etc.

The Ducks’ Teemu Selanne, two goals shy of 600 for his NHL career, missed the game because of flu-like symptoms.

robynnorwood@verizon.net