Ducks Stumble Against Bruins

You got the feeling by watching the Mighty Ducks on Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond that all they needed was one big break against the Boston Bruins.

Or one good shift.

Or one good period.

Never happened.

The Ducks got next to nothing accomplished until it was too late in a 3-2 loss to the Bruins before an announced crowd of 14,712. In the end, the Ducks were outworked and worked over by a team with a good deal more pluck than skill.

Oh, the Bruins have a speedy little winger named Sergei Samsonov, who is capable of making defenses look bad, as he did on a first-period goal Sunday.

Boston also has a future Hall of Famer in defenseman Ray Bourque.

But name another Bruin and you win a prize.

Still, the no-names whipped the big names from Anaheim until deep into the final period. It wasn’t even close for about 50 minutes.

Samsonov and Dave Andreychuk scored for Boston in the first period. Steve Heinze added a power-play goal in the second and somebody named Robbie Tallas stopped the Ducks cold until center Matt Cullen’s goal at 12:06 of the third period.

Duck defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky made things a bit more interesting by scoring while goalie Guy Hebert was on the bench in favor of a sixth skater with 1:12 left.

But the rally ended there.

“We cheated,” captain Paul Kariya said flatly at game’s end. “We didn’t do the little things. If we had, by the third period, we could have taken over this game.”

Coach Craig Hartsburg warned the Ducks what might happen if they came out flat after going 2-2-1 on their just-completed trip to New Jersey, Tampa Bay, Florida, Washington and Chicago.

Boston didn’t exactly have the Ducks quaking in their skates, having registered its first win of the season only Saturday night, 3-1 over the San Jose Sharks.

Underestimating the Bruins might also have played a part in the Ducks’ lifeless start, although Kariya insisted that was not the case. A day of rest Friday and a good practice Saturday should have had the Ducks ready.

“We knew exactly what was going to happen in this game,” Kariya said. “A good team would have done things differently. But we’re not to that level yet. Sooner or later, we’ll learn it.”

The Ducks should have played a patient game while waiting for the road-weary Bruins, who were playing the final game of a six-game trip, to weaken

Instead, the Ducks chucked their aggressive forecheck in favor of a freewheeling style that caused more problems than it solved. The biggest boo-boos of the first period led to goals and a 2-0 deficit.

First, no one in a Duck uniform saw fit to put a body on Samsonov, who dashed and darted through the defense and delivered a laser beam over Hebert’s left shoulder at 3:48.

Next, Duck right wing Teemu Selanne attempted to clear a puck from his own zone by sending it up the middle of the ice. Most pee-wee league players know they’re better off chipping it off the boards.

The Bruins picked off Selanne’s pass. The puck then wound up on the stick of Andreychuk and he whistled a quick shot from the slot past Hebert at 16:29.

Heinze’s second-period goal at the 13:21 mark proved to be pivotal, but only after the Ducks awoke from their slumber in the third period. The Ducks hardly looked like the same team in the third, but a three-goal deficit was too much to make up in only 20 minutes.

“When we [force the opposition to] turn pucks over on our forecheck and skate hard, we’re very effective,” Kariya said. “There are only a few teams that can match us. When we don’t, we’re not even a playoff contender.”

The good news for the Ducks is that their problems are easy to solve in time for Wednesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Working harder and playing smarter are fairly simple concepts.

“Teams that work, are desperate and compete are going to win hockey games,” Hartsburg said. “It doesn’t matter how much skill you have. The positive thing is we did start to do those things in the third period.”