Effort Is Good, the Loss Is Not

This was a feel-good thing.

A 3-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche Sunday left the Mighty Ducks somewhat happy with their effort. And it certainly sent the many Avalanche fans among the announced crowd of 14,655 at the Arrowhead Pond home happy. .

Colorado, after all, is the defending Stanley Cup champion. There were good things to point to for the Ducks. Their effort was fine.

So never mind that they let a 2-1 third-period lead slip away. Or that Paul Kariya’s goal-less streak reached 10 games, matching his career-high. Or that defenseman Ruslan Salei’s gaffe turned the game. Or that the power play was null and void again

The Sell: This game could help the Ducks later on. “We played hard, we played determined,” Duck Coach Bryan Murray said. “We couldn’t find a way to get a goal in the end. We made a couple plays we would like to have back. I have said all along that we have to win some of these games and we will win some of them.”

But not Sunday.

The Avalanche got third-period goals from Steven Reinprecht and Martin Skoula. They got a fine understudy effort from goalie David Aebischer, who made a cameo appearance in the playoffs last season.

Aebischer, playing so Patrick Roy could rest a sore hip, stopped 21 of 23 shots, including a Roy-like save on Mike Leclerc’s point-blank poke with 37 seconds left.

“This is a tough one to swallow,” Duck center Matt Cullen said. “We did everything we could to win this game. I guess we have to take this as a lesson from the defending Stanley Cup champions.”

True, Colorado is the defending Stanley Cup champion, even if there were some noticeable absences from the 2000-01 Avalanche team picture Sunday.

Ray Bourque has retired. Peter Forsberg has taken a sabbatical. Adam Foote is on injured reserve. Jon Klemm is now with Chicago. Roy was on the bench.

Sure, the Avalanche had some headliners. Joe Sakic was there. He picked up a long rebound and whipped a shot past goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere to tie the score, 1-1, midway through the first period.

But there was a B-squad appearance to the Avalanche and the Ducks handled them with their A game, for two periods at least. “That is the level we need to play at every night,” Murray said about Colorado’s play. “They are the type of team that wins championships.”

The Ducks, meanwhile, are the type of team that needs to work out a few kinks.

Their effort topped the charts, but their power play scraped bottom. They did get a power-play goal, but it came when the Avalanche’s Shjon Podein mishandled the puck at the edge of the goal crease, allowing Samuel Pahlsson to slip it past Aebischer for a 2-1 lead 16 minutes 46 seconds into the first period.

That ended an 0-for-15 drought on the power play. The Ducks, however, were one for eight on the power play

That wasn’t an issue through the first two periods.

Kariya left a drop pass on a silver platter for Jason York, who blasted a shot past Aebischer for a 1-0 lead 3:27 into the game, getting the Ducks started.

The Ducks took a 2-1 lead into the third period.

“We did a lot of good things out there,” Kariya said. “We have the experience to win close games like this.”

Salei has loads of experience, yet he pinched trying to keep the puck in the Avalanche zone early in the third period and got burned.

Ville Nieminen chipped the puck past Salei and was off, rushing into the Duck zone and leaving a drop pass for Reinprecht, who scored his first goal this season to tie the score at 2-2.

Skoula made the Ducks pay again at 13:25 of the period, scoring when a puck deflected off a stick and went right to him.