Slow start costs Ducks in 4-3 loss to San Jose

The Ducks’ All-Star break is over, but they slept through their alarm.

They gave up a goal 14 seconds into the game against the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday, then fell behind by three in the first 12 minutes.

That sent their All-Star goaltender, Jonas Hiller, to the bench before a comeback that was too little, too late in a 4-3 loss at the Honda Center.

“I don’t know what the problem was. We weren’t ready,” Hiller said. “And it seemed like instead of waking up, we just kept trying to play the same way.”

Hiller held some of the NHL’s best players to two goals in a 20-minute appearance in the All-Star game Sunday. He left Wednesday’s game after giving up three goals on 10 shots in a little more than half a period.

“I didn’t feel as good as I wish I would have,” he said. “There are days you feel better. There are days you feel not as good. Today was one I didn’t feel that well.”

The Sharks scored on the opening shift after Dany Heatley carried the puck behind the net and tried a wraparound, then scored on his second effort for his 19th goal of the season.

They scored again at the 7:34 mark when Ben Eager skated across the blue line and rang a low shot off the post and into the net.

Their third goal came on another long shot, with Hiller screened on Jason Demers’ one-timer from the right point at 11:15.

“I don’t think it was one of his better nights, but Jonas has played some outstanding goal for our hockey club,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We should have rallied around him and fought for him in this situation.”

A Sharks team that had been similarly shellshocked in its return Tuesday against the Phoenix Coyotes — falling behind 3-0 before rallying for a 5-3 victory — did not let the Ducks come all the way back.

“It’s definitely not easy playing after quite a long break, and they had a game last night and kind of the same thing happened to them,” Hiller said. “They didn’t make the same mistake tonight.”

Curtis McElhinney relieved Hiller, and the Ducks finally emerged from their snooze in the second period, when Joffrey Lupul scored on a shot from near the top of the right circle off a pass from Maxim Lapierre to cut the lead to 3-1 at the 5:44 mark.

The Sharks’ Ryane Clowe put back a power-play rebound to make it 4-1 at 15:39 of the second. Then Ducks rookie Cam Fowler repaid the favor, scoring off a rebound on a power play at 17:52.

Bobby Ryan gave the Ducks a real chance by scoring his 23rd goal of the season from the high slot at 5:36 of the third. But the Ducks could not make good on a power play, then had trouble controlling the puck well enough to get McElhinney off for an extra attacker for more than 14 seconds.

This is not the way the Ducks hoped to pick up after going 10-3 before the break.

“Call it what you want, complacency because of the way we finished or lackadaisical,” Ryan said. “But we were lethargic to start the game. Going down, 3-0, against a division rival is a tough, tough hole to crawl out of.”

Etc.

Ducks forward Aaron Voros returned to the lineup after sitting out 21 games because of a broken orbital bone.

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