Kings Play Like Paupers Against Ducks

So which team was the playoff contender and which was the hopeless stumblebum?

It was difficult to tell Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond, where the Mighty Ducks suddenly took on the appearance of a poised playoff-bound club and the Kings looked like a bunch of stiffs counting the days until season’s end.

“Let’s give the Ducks credit,” King Coach Andy Murray said after his team’s 4-0-1 unbeaten streak ended with a 4-0 loss before a sellout crowd of 17,174. “This might be one of their season highlights.”

Uh, yeah. But then again, the Ducks also shut out the Kings, 4-0, the last time the teams played, Dec. 3 at the Pond. So perhaps this wasn’t a fluke, but more the result of the NHL schedule-maker, who had the Kings in Anaheim less than 24 hours after they hosted the Detroit Red Wings at Staples Center.

After an emotional 6-3 victory Saturday against the Red Wings, the Kings suffered an all-too-predictable letdown against the Ducks, last in the Western Conference and losers of four in a row.

Instead of skating with purpose, the Kings seemed to be standing still and reaching with their sticks after loose pucks, particularly in the first period. That’s a bad game plan against speedy Duck wingers Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, who picked apart the slow-moving Kings.

Kariya had two goals and an assist and Selanne scored a goal and had two assists. Rookie center Marc Chouinard also scored for the Ducks.

Goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere made 25 saves, ending his four-game losing streak and recording his second career shutout. Giguere stoned Luc Robitaille twice, batting a point-blank shot away from the net early in the second period and thwarting him with a left pad save on a breakaway early in the third.

“We knew they played [Saturday] and, obviously, we wanted to come out skating hard and trying not to give them anything,” Giguere said.

The ninth-place Kings squandered a chance to move within three points of the seventh-place Edmonton Oilers and the eighth-place Phoenix Coyotes, who each have 73 points. The top eight teams in each conference advance to the playoffs.

“There were a multitude of excuses you can make,” Murray said. “You could say it was our third game in four nights. It was a late game [Saturday] and an early start [Sunday]. We were coming off an emotionally charged game against Detroit.

“I would just put an ‘X’ through each one and say this was an important game. I won’t allow our team to make excuses. Some of our key guys were not very good tonight. Three of the goals [the Ducks] got were the result of hard work on their part and poor execution on our part.”

Winger Jonas Ronnqvist beat the Kings to a loose puck, slipping a pass into the slot for an unmarked Chouinard, whose easy tap-in gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 13:13 of the opening period.

Selanne, taking a pass from the right wing from Kariya, skated unmolested into the slot and whipped a backhander through traffic and past Felix Potvin for a 2-0 Duck lead at 16:59.

Early in the second, defenseman Mike Crowley slipped a centering pass to Kariya from the left wing and Kariya beat Potvin to the stick side on a breakaway for a power-play goal and a 3-0 lead.

In the third, Kariya outraced King defenseman Jere Karalahti to Selanne’s breakout pass and beat Potvin on a breakaway to account for the final score.

“They did a lot of good things that they probably wanted to do all season, but just haven’t done it,” Murray said of the Ducks, who are 6-20-4-2 since Kariya broke his right foot Dec. 17.

The Kings knew better than to dismiss the Ducks as a pushover. The team met after Saturday’s victory over the Red Wings to talk about playing with intensity and consistency Sunday.

“We talked about all those things before the game and we come out in the first period and were flat,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “It’s tough to swallow now, but we’ve got to stay positive. We can’t forget we’ve done some good things the last week to 10 days.”