One Is a Lonely Number Again

CHICAGO â€”  Patric Kjellberg sighed and did some soul searching.

“We were the better team today,� Kjellberg said. “I think we deserved to win.�

Yeah, shoulda, coulda, woulda. That could replace “Answer The Call,� the Mighty Ducks’ slogan this season.

Once again the Ducks were the victims of that pesky NHL rule: The team with the most goals wins.

The Ducks’ 2-1 loss to Chicago on Sunday could be considered a positive thing. The Ducks outworked the Blackhawks, one of the Western Conference’s hottest teams, and silenced the 17,382 at the United Center for much of the night.

But this was a familiar ending. The Ducks score one goal. They lose by one goal. They come away feeling OK about themselves. But they come away without any points.

Goalie Steve Shields was a rock, making 29 saves, including one on Alexei Zhamnov’s penalty shot in the second period. Defensively, the Ducks were solid. For two periods, they blanked the Blackhawks, who were fourth in the NHL with 119 goals entering the game.

But the other end of the ice was no-man’s land. The Ducks didn’t score until an Oleg Tverdovsky shot went off Kjellberg’s knee and into the net with 33 seconds left.

The Ducks had a six-on-three advantage at the time, due to pulling Shields and two Chicago penalties. And it took them 57 seconds to score with a three-man edge.

So third-period goals by Kyle Calder and Steve Sullivan held up.

“We need to score goals,� team captain Paul Kariya said. “In general our team is getting Grade A quality scoring chances. The puck is not going in.�

And it hasn’t too often this season. The Ducks have scored two or fewer goals in 29 of 41 games. They have won only three of those games.

“We all have responsibilities,� Shields said. “The guys who play forward have to work hard to get to the net, bang in pucks. A missed opportunity is just as bad as blowing a defensive play in your own end and getting scored on. It’s a goal we’re not getting.

“Sometimes I get mad at guys in practice when we goof around because I really want the guys to score and score a lot. If they worked hard to score every day in practice, that might be a way to help. Some guys just had bad luck. That’s more the issue now.�

Still ...

“Sometimes, you have to be able to let in a couple goals and still get a win,� Shields said. “Other teams do it. We let in a few here and it’s hard for us to win.�

The Blackhawks’ Jocelyn Thibault, Shields’ counterpart, certainly had something to do with that Sunday. He stopped 30 of 31 shots, including a few that rated as exceptional.

He denied Kjellberg in close with the game scoreless early in the third period. He also made slick saves on Kariya and Jason York during a second-period power play.

The Ducks’ best opportunity came midway through the third period, when Samuel Pahlsson led a three-on-one rush into the Blackhawk zone. Pahlsson passed to Kariya, who passed back to Pahlsson, who passed to Marty McInnis, whose point-blank shot hit the post.

“Sometimes you want one so bad it hurts,� said McInnis, who has gone 12 games without a goal. “Sammy made a great pass to me. There’s not much you can do.�