Ducks’ Hopes Flutter Away, Despite Win

NASHVILLE —  They skated as if on a mission here Friday night. Their passes hit their intended targets. Their shots hit the back of the net. They even hit the opposition now and then.

So, why in the name of Lord Stanley didn’t the Mighty Ducks play that way all season?

Even the Ducks wondered after they hammered the Nashville Predators, 5-1, but were still eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoff race.

“It’s about time we showed our true colors, and that means everybody,” captain Paul Kariya said after scoring his team-leading 40th and 41st goals.

In the end, it proved to be a futile effort.

The Edmonton Oilers rallied from a 3-1 third-period deficit Friday to defeat the Vancouver Canucks, 5-4, in overtime, eliminating the Ducks and Canucks. The Oilers clinched the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.

The Ducks were flying home by the time the Edmonton-Vancouver game ended and were unavailable to comment on their elimination.

Rest assured, the organization will have a good deal of “what ifs” to ponder during what promises to be an intriguing off-season for Pierre Gauthier, team president and general manager.

Another thing Gauthier--and every other NHL general manager except Glen Sather of the Oilers--must consider is whether to continue with the league’s generous overtime rules.

The Oilers benefited more than any other team from the league’s new overtime format, which calls for teams to receive a point simply for forcing the five-minute extra period.

In addition to 16 ties, Edmonton picked up eight additional points for losing in overtime.

Under the old rules, the Ducks would have 80 points (instead of 82) going into Sunday’s game against the Kings. Edmonton would have only 78 points (instead of 86) going into tonight’s game against Calgary.

It was all moot late Friday, however.

“We’ve got to keep our fingers and toes crossed,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said with a faint smile before the Ducks boarded their flight for Southern California. “It’s not a good feeling, sitting around waiting for someone else to do your job for you.”

Hartsburg planned to keep in touch by air phone with David McNab, the Ducks’ assistant general manager, who stayed behind in Nashville and monitored the Vancouver-Edmonton game via the Internet.

The Canucks took a 3-1 lead not long after the Ducks entered the dressing room after demolishing Nashville.

“We challenged ourselves tonight,” Steve Rucchin said after scoring two goals and adding an assist, giving him five goals and three assists in four games against the Predators. “We were unhappy with how things went the other night in Chicago.”

Goalie Guy Hebert, who gave up two soft goals in Wednesday’s 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, rebounded better than any of the Ducks Friday. Hebert gave up a first-period goal to Tom Fitzgerald at 6:03, but nothing else got past him as he made 28 saves for his 28th victory.

The Ducks tied the score, 1-1, on Rucchin’s power-play shot from the slot at 11:03 of the first period. Kariya scored the go-ahead goal on a short-handed breakaway 18 seconds into the second period.

Antti Aalto’s goal on a backhand flip and Rucchin’s blast from the slot turned the game into a rout by the middle of the second period. The Ducks outshot Nashville, 19-6, in the second.

Kariya’s clinical finish on a back-hander after Rucchin sprung him with a lead pass 2:57 into the third period simply added highlight-reel material.

Neither the goal nor the Ducks’ victory Friday did much to cheer Kariya, however. He was one of the few Ducks still in a sour mood after Wednesday’s back-breaking loss at Chicago.

“It’s very frustrating,” he said. “You know it’s there. You know the talent level is there. But the commitment and the work-ethic is not consistently there. The scary thing is we’ve beaten some good teams when it has been there.”