Something Missing in Mighty Ducks’ Loss

For six games, the Mighty Ducks looked like an honest-to-goodness threat to break from mediocrity to become a formidable NHL team again. They won three and tied three for their longest unbeaten streak since their glory days of 1996-97.

But the relentless offensive attack forged by their pluck and grit was missing in a 3-1 loss Wednesday to the St. Louis Blues before 14,710 at the Arrowhead Pond.

In the end, they looked like the same incompetent crew that missed the playoffs with a feeble 26-43-13 record last season.

“We couldn’t have beaten anyone in the league tonight with the way we worked,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “Nobody can be proud of how hard they worked tonight. Nobody.”

The Ducks’ first loss since a 1-0 defeat Oct. 13 to the Montreal Canadiens was indeed a doozy. The Ducks were outworked and worked over.

“We were awful in every aspect of the game,” team captain Paul Kariya said. “We don’t have the talent to come out and lace our skates up and expect to win.”

The Ducks seemed to be so far off their game that they hardly resembled the team that tied the Blues, 2-2, Saturday in St. Louis. Or looked like the guys who rallied with two goals in the final minute of regulation in a 3-3 tie against the Dallas Stars last Friday.

Or . . . Well, you get the idea.

“There’s nothing easy about winning in this league,” Hartsburg said. “We took the easy way out all night.”

Unlike the six games before Wednesday, the Ducks did not battle in the corners or in front of the net. They turned the puck over repeatedly and failed to cover Blues in front of goaltender Guy Hebert.

To be sure, the Blues muzzled Kariya and Teemu Selanne, which made for a difficult night for the Ducks’ one-two offensive punch.

And it was tough to know precisely what impact referee Dennis LaRue’s failure to award Kariya a second-period penalty shot had on the final result.

But the Ducks made their own luck Wednesday and most of it was bad.

“It was pretty easy for [the Blues] because we didn’t work very hard,” Hartsburg said. “[All-Star St. Louis defensemen Al] MacInnis and [Chris] Pronger probably could have played without their shoulder pads, even without their helmets and they would have made it through the game just fine.”

Neither had a goal, but neither needed one.

Tony Twist, Pavol Demitra and Pierre Turgeon scored the Blues’ goals. Tomas Sandstrom scored the Duck goal, on a power play that cut the Blues’ lead to 2-1 at 12:06 of the third period.

Sandstrom’s goal might have enabled the Ducks to tie the Blues, 2-2. But LaRue decided against awarding a penalty shot to Kariya after MacInnis hooked him to the ice on a breakaway with the Blues leading, 1-0, at 15:23 of the second period.

Television replays clearly showed Kariya ahead of MacInnis and Pronger when he was pulled to the ice, which is grounds for awarding a penalty shot. But LaRue said he didn’t see it that way.

“From where I was standing on the ice, I was not certain Mr. Kariya was clear of Mr. Pronger, and rather than guess, I called hooking,” LaRue said.

Said Kariya: “He told me afterward he should have called [a penalty shot]. It was such a quick play and he was way back in the zone. It was a tough play to call.”

Instead of Kariya breaking in alone against St. Louis goalie Grant Fuhr on a penalty shot, the Ducks had to settle for a two-minute power play.

Sandstrom’s power-play goal in the third period was only the Ducks’ fifth in 50 chances with the man advantage this season.

It was the sort of impact Hartsburg hoped for when he made his first dramatic lineup changes of the season Wednesday.

Hartsburg moved inexperienced forwards Matt Cullen and Jeff Nielsen from the fourth line to the second line and dropped veterans Travis Green and Marty McInnis to the fourth line.