Ducks Fail to Change Losing Ways : Hockey: Substitute officials are not an issue in Anaheim’s 4-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

ANAHEIM —  Replacement officials kept a close watch on the Mighty Ducks and Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday at Anaheim Arena. And for the most part, it seemed like NHL business as usual.

The substitutes held their own, avoiding any serious gaffes. The Ducks played well enough to keep the game interesting. Toronto’s Doug Gilmour set up a goal and got booed.

And the Maple Leafs--off quickly with two first-period goals by Dave Andreychuk--won, 4-3, before 17,083.

It was a fairly predictable night: the better team won and there were no major controversies involving the officials.

Wendel Clark scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal at the 13:48 mark of the second period. It was Clark’s 18th goal this season, tying him with Dallas’ Mike Modano for the NHL lead.

This was the Ducks’ first game with substitute officials. The Maple Leafs played against Edmonton on Monday, the first night of the strike.

Michael E. Foy, a veteran minor league official who officiated some NHL games in the late 1970s, was Wednesday’s referee.

“A very acceptable job,” Dutch Van Deelen, a supervisor of officials, said of Foy’s work. “I thought he handled a tough second period very well.”

Foy told Van Deelen he grew fatigued in the third period. “I felt tired in my legs, kind of like a fighter,” Foy said.

Don Moffat and Brian Farley of the International Hockey League were the linesmen.

The three will “probably” work tonight’s Toronto-King game, Van Deelen said.

Earlier in the day, the NHL announced that Canadian officials could work games in the United States. There had been some concern that replacements would not be granted proper visas to work across the border. But Moffat, a Canadian citizen, was cleared to work Wednesday.

Certainly, the league seems pleased with the replacements’ work so far.

“(Foy) let a couple of calls go in the third period, but I like that,” said Brian Burke, the NHL’s senior vice president of hockey operations. “People don’t come to see the referees, they come to see the players play.”

Burke dismissed complaints by St. Louis’ Brett Hull that the replacement referee let obvious penalties go unpunished during the Blues’ 3-0 loss at Vancouver on Tuesday.

“That’s what I’d say if I got beat, 3-0, on the road,” Burke said. “They were a frustrated hockey team and Brett was a frustrated young man.”

“The (replacements) have done well. But we still want to settle this thing.”

The two sides reportedly will meet again today to negotiate as the strike begins its fourth day.

The Ducks were also hopeful the strike would end soon, but Terry Yake didn’t seem overly concerned that mayhem would result without the NHL officials.

“They’ve got eyes, just like everybody else,” Yake said of the new officials the other day.

Wednesday, Yake helped the Ducks erase a 3-0 Toronto lead, scoring his seventh goal of the year to tie the score, 3-3, at the 9:41 mark of the second period.

But Clark broke the tie, beating Guy Hebert with a wrist shot from 20 feet about four minutes later.

“I suppose you’ve all seen the movie ‘Groundhog Day,’ ” Coach Ron Wilson said after the Ducks’ third consecutive one-goal loss. “The alarm goes off and it’s the same thing all over again.”

The Maple Leafs went into the game 1-2-2 in their past five games and 0-2-3 in the last five road games, but jumped on the Ducks right from the start.

Andreychuk scored the first of his two goals 3:19 into the game, beating Duck goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov with a shot from the right circle. Andreychuk then deflected a shot past Shtalenkov, who was making only his second NHL start, at the 8:20 mark.

Shtalenkov let in Chris Govedaris’ slap shot from the blue line for a 3-0 Toronto lead on only five shots on goal. Hebert replaced Shtalenkov to start the second period, stopping 16 of 17 shots.

“I’m a little hoarse from telling our defensemen to skate,” Wilson said. “They were standing around watching. They are giving up the blue line and backing in way too much. We have to face facts. Sometimes our defensemen aren’t a fleet-footed group.”