Young Wants to Have Fun While Improving His Play

Any time Scott Young forgets about how fun this game can be, he can look at the wall across from his locker stall at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

There hangs a photo of the Stanley Cup. Around the Cup are four players--all of whom began the season in Anaheim--who were on Cup-winning teams. In the lower right corner is Young, posed with one hand on the Cup and a bottle of champagne in the other.

Young knows those days are long gone. His just wants to make things fun again.

“It’s been a disappointing year for everybody,” said Young, who had a goal and two assists Sunday night in a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Avalanche. “At this point, I think we have to forget about everything that’s happened and try to have some fun with the game.”

The Ducks have failed to meet that objective. Young, whom the Ducks got from the Avalanche last September for a draft pick, knows there are numerous theories as to why this team is failing.

And he knows his bosses, team President Tony Tavares and Coach Pierre Page, are mentioning him in negative tones.

“The onus that was on Scott Young and Tomas Sandstrom was to score 20 to 25 goals and we thought [Espen] Knutsen would have a decent year and would [help] provide 40 to 50 goals from the second line,” Page said last Wednesday after a loss to Toronto. “And we’re not close.”

Far from it. Young, who has 10 goals and 27 points, has scored four points in his last two games. His best points streak of the season has been three games.

Not exactly what the Ducks were looking for when they obtained the 30-year-old right wing.

“The way things have been going--the guys have been pressing--the locker room has been brutal,” he said. “It’s been a tough atmosphere, rightfully so because things haven’t gone well. Maybe it’s time to attempt to have some fun at our job and see if we can get some results.”

Young helped set up Sandstrom’s goal in the first period, then did the same on Matt Cullen’s goal in the second before putting the exclamation point on the night with a goal at 19:59 of the third period.

The coaches wrote on the message board in the locker room, “You battled hard.”

But for Young, the battle has gotten in the way of things. He has battled through slumps, injuries (scratched cornea) and high expectations. Now he wants to find the player who had fun, who posed for a picture with the cup in the early hours of June 11, 1996.

“We came in tonight and played pretty relaxed,” he said. “I hope we can keep this attitude because it’s no use, at this point, just beating ourselves up every day.

“It’s a game; try to have some fun with it.”