Mighty Ducks Give Another One Away

ANAHEIM — Seated on the Mighty Duck bench early in the third period Monday night, Teemu Selanne screamed out to no one in particular: “What the heck is going on?” Except he didn’t say heck.

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

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

“We got the lead and we stopped playing,” Selanne said. “We didn’t work hard enough. I don’t know why. We weren’t hungry enough. How we played, I think it’s embarrassing. In our home building and we play like this? I can’t believe it. That’s why I was mad.

“Everybody else was disgusted, too. If you work hard and lose that’s OK. But we didn’t work hard. Everybody should look in the mirror and feel really embarrassed.”

Vancouver’s 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 snipers.

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

“Too often we judge a player’s performance by the numbers on the score sheet,” Vancouver Coach Tom Renney said. “With Mike Sillinger I never look at that. He’s a hard-working, honest guy and I’m proud to be associated with him.”

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

The Ducks failed to click, faltering badly after a torrid start. They also gave up two short-handed goals--Sillinger had one and Bure the other.

The Ducks gave up repeated point-blank shots to the Canucks. When they grew weary of that, the Ducks merely gave the puck away. Vancouver outshot the Ducks 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 who I’m really [mad] at. We ended up making awful decisions.”

Following their recent method of operation, the Ducks grabbed a quick lead, 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.

Vancouver’s Scott Walker swept in a loose puck for the equalizer at the 15:42 mark of the first period. A bit of kind fortune helped Walker to score his first goal of the season. He was actually trying to feed a cross-ice pass to a teammate, but Duck defenseman Bobby Dollas blocked it.

The puck struck Dollas in the face and flew back to Walker, whose quick shot slipped past goalie Guy Hebert. The Canucks then took the lead 6:17 into the second period on Bure’s blistering slap shot over Hebert’s left shoulder.

Sillinger set up the Canucks’ first two goals, then scored one himself--on a breakaway after a giveaway by Duck defenseman Dmitri Mironov.

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.

Sillinger banked a backhander off Hebert’s right knee into the net for a short-handed goal and a 3-1 Vancouver lead.

Early in the third period, Bure scored the Canucks’ fourth goal on a two-on-none breakaway with Esa Tikkanen. Bure fed Tikkanen. Tikkanen gave the puck back to Bure, who scored against a helpless Hebert.

Dave Babych added the fifth goal.