Ducks Still Lacking Punch When It Really Counts, 5-1

Seated on the Mighty Duck bench early in the third period, Teemu Selanne wondered what the heck was going on, except he didn’t say heck.

Selanne punched the boards in front of him and soon enough, 17,012 at the Pond of Anaheim began expressing their frustration.

Boos rained down on Selanne and his teammates as another lackluster Duck performance produced a resounding 5-1 Vancouver victory.

Pavel Bure scored twice, which would have been enough to give the Ducks their fourth loss in the last six games. But Mike Sillinger stuck it to his former team with one goal and two assists.

Bure’s offensive outburst wasn’t anything the Ducks hadn’t seen before. After all, he is one of the league’s top scorers.

But Sillinger? He had been nothing more than a grinder in 77 games with the Ducks from 1994-95 to 1995-96.

Apparently all things are possible when you catch the Ducks at less than peak performance.

“There’s a little extra incentive when you play against a team that didn’t want you in the first place,” Sillinger said. “That couldn’t have been a better night for myself and the hockey club.”

Monday’s dismal showing again underscored the gulf between playoff contenders such as Vancouver and playoff pretenders such as Anaheim.

The Ducks failed to click, seemed to ease up on Vancouver after a torrid start, then fell to pieces late in the game.

The Ducks gave up two short-handed goals--Sillinger had one and Bure the other. They received sound goaltending from Guy Hebert, but the defense in front of him was shaky at best.

The Ducks gave up repeated point-blank shots to the Canucks. When they grew weary of that, the Ducks gave the puck away. Vancouver outshot them, 41-31.

It added up to a thorough beating.

“We had too many passengers on the bus,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “We didn’t work. There are five or six guys I’m really . . . off at.”

Following their recent method of operation, the Ducks grabbed a quick lead, applied sustained pressure, but couldn’t break the game open.

Selanne gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead 40 seconds into the game, slamming a rebound from a sharp angle past Vancouver goalie Kirk McLean. It was the sixth consecutive game the Ducks had scored first and the fifth time in that span they lost the lead.

Scott Walker swept in a loose puck for the equalizer at the 15:42 mark of the first period. Good fortune helped Walker score his first goal. He was trying to feed a pass to a teammate, but Duck defenseman Bobby Dollas slid to block it. The puck struck Dollas in the face and flew back to Walker, whose shot slipped past Hebert.

Dollas needed 11 stitches to close a gash under his left eye.

The Canucks then took the lead 6:17 into the second period on Bure’s blistering shot over Hebert’s left shoulder.

Sillinger set up the Canucks’ first two goals, then scored one.

Truth be told, Duck defenseman Dmitri Mironov had a big hand in the goal. With the Ducks pressing for the tying goal on a power-play late in the period, Mironov fed a neutral zone pass into Sillinger’s midsection.

Sillinger, who had two goals in the Canucks’ 7-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, gained control of the puck and managed to fend off Mironov as he raced toward the Duck net.

Mironov appeared at last to have moved Sillinger off the puck, but Sillinger banked a backhander off Hebert’s right knee into the net for a short-handed goal and a 3-1 Vancouver lead.