Coyotes Embarrass the Ducks

ANAHEIM — Take heart, Mighty Duck fans. Better days and nights are ahead for your faltering hockey team.

After all, it can’t get any worse than it did in the first two periods of Friday’s 6-2 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes in front of 16,560 disgruntled fans, can it?

The Ducks play the San Jose Sharks at the Pond on Sunday, so stay tuned. Maybe it can.

“Right now, something is dragging us down,” Coach Pierre Page said. “Anybody who’s not a solution right now . . . get them out of town. If you’re a solution, if you’ve got a solution . . . great.

“If we don’t make some [personnel] decisions soon, we’re going to stand still. It’s easier said than done, I know. Anybody who’s a negative or dragging us down . . . whoosh. Get them out of here.”

Neither Paul Kariya nor Teemu Selanne could save the Ducks Friday. Kariya scored his fourth goal in three games and Selanne earned an assist.

Past belly flops might have accurately been chalked up to Kariya’s absence over a contract dispute with Duck management. But with Kariya back in the lineup for his third game after signing a two-year, $14 million deal last week, no such excuses are available.

The Ducks’ goaltending was shaky, their penalty-killing was abysmal, their power play was ineffective, their defense didn’t defend and their offense couldn’t score until it was 6-0 in the third period.

“We don’t work hard enough,” Selanne said. “We don’t hit and we don’t deserve to win any games.”

And those weren’t exactly the Stanley Cup champions the Ducks were facing either.

The Coyotes played like a team bent on ending an eight-game winless streak. The Ducks played like a team racing toward a similar one.

“I saw four players feeling sorry for themselves in their own building,” Page said. “We want people who are going to say, ‘This is a challenge. I want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.’

“This happens every place I’ve been and I’ve coached four [NHL] teams. It’s a team trying to grow, trying to take the next step.”

The Ducks seem to be staggering after their second consecutive loss by a 6-2 score, their sixth defeat in the last eight games and 12th in the past 18. What’s more, they are 4-10-3 at the Pond.

The Ducks were booed off the ice at the end of the first and second periods. Those fans who stuck around until the bitter end were rewarded with a credible third period from the Ducks, however.

Goals by Kariya and Joe Sacco made it 6-2 only 2:29 into the third. Hebert grew sharper as the game progressed and made several fine saves, including a stop on Mike Gartner on a breakaway.

The Ducks trailed, 3-0, after giving up three power-play goals in the first period. They were down, 6-0, after the second period.

When the Ducks returned to start the second period, Guy Hebert replaced ineffective starter Mikhail Shtalenkov in goal.

Shtalenkov, starting for only the third time in the past 10 games, struggled right from the start. He failed to stop Michel Petit’s less-than-blistering slap shot from the blue line at 2:32.

There was no traffic in front and Shtalenkov seemed to have a good look at the puck, but it slipped past on the stick side.

He couldn’t have done much to stop the Coyotes’ second goal. Keith Tkachuk planted himself in the slot and punched in a rebound at 10:21.

John Slaney then scored at 12:18 on another changeup from the blue line that Shtalenkov failed to handle.

Exit Shtalenkov and enter Hebert.

Tkachuk, Cliff Ronning and Rick Tocchet scored in the second period as the Coyotes built a 6-0 lead.