Ducks Let Victory Slip Away : Hockey: Ahead 2-1 with less than five minutes to play, they end up losing to Canucks, 3-2.

VANCOUVER —  The Mighty Ducks played 56 minutes of outstanding hockey against the Vancouver Canucks at Pacific Coliseum Sunday. Too bad the game lasted 60, Coach Ron Wilson said.

“It’s frustrating as all hell to watch some people make boneheaded mistakes when it gets to be crunch time,” Wilson said after his team gave up a game-tying shorthanded goal at 16:31 of the third, then lost the game, 3-2, when Gino Odjick scored at 18:03.

The Ducks, after being less than five minutes away from a victory and two points, left with nothing after Odjick deflected Gerald Diduck’s slap shot from the point.

The Ducks never trailed until Odjick’s goal in a game that could prove the last to be played with regular NHL officials as a strike looms. When referee Dave Jackson and linesmen Jay Sharrers and Brad Lazarowich skated off the ice, it marked the last of the NHL’s four games Sunday, with the league prepared to send replacements out to today’s games if no agreement is reached.

Wilson’s team played a good, tight-checking game against the Canucks, and led, 2-1, after Terry Yake scored his sixth goal of the season at 3:21 of the second, beating Kay Whitmore on the glove side with a shot from the slot.

But they squandered too many scoring opportunities--including the third-period power-play opportunity after Sergio Momesso was penalized for elbowing at 15:30 of the third.

Instead of adding a goal, the Ducks’ hopes of beating the Canucks went up in smoke when Pavel Bure shoved in a rebound past goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov at 16:31. Shtalenkov, a 28-year-old-rookie who was called up from minor league San Diego last week, was making his first NHL start. But Wilson didn’t blame him.

“I thought he played fine. It wasn’t his fault,” Wilson said.

Bure, the Canucks’ star, had been out for eight games because of a groin injury, and the team had said he would not play during the weekend. Instead, Bure took the ice for the opening faceoff--perhaps the Canucks thought the Ducks were a good opponent for a test run?--though he did not appear to be 100%.

Wilson couldn’t quit fuming about errors, though he declined to name the players he was upset with. Sean Hill, Bill Houlder, Terry Yake, Anatoli Semenov and Garry Valk were the power-play unit on the ice for the shorthanded goal.

“You can’t relax,” he said. “We’re not good enough to relax for two seconds. . . . We’ve got individuals who have got to get up there and take a swing, not get up there and bunt. We have to start taking the manly way.”

The Ducks scored first on Bill Houlder’s slap shot from the slot at 3:41 of the first. Garry Valk--picked up from the Canucks in the waiver draft--finished a thwarted rush by throwing the puck back out to Houlder from the right side of the net.

But the Canucks tied the score at 14:37 in the second on Diduck’s goal. Then, in the third, the Ducks collapsed.

“There’s no excuse. We’re all professional athletes,” Hill said. “It’s just a joke, that’s what it is. We’ll learn. We have to.”

Duck Notes

Defenseman Mark Ferner left the game before the second period with a groin injury. His status is day-to-day. . . . Right wing Todd Ewen (sore knee), goaltender Guy Hebert and left wing Tim Sweeney were regulars who were scratched. Hebert took a turn in the press box with No. 3 goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov getting his first start. Sweeney was a coaches’ decision. Right wings Jim Thomson and Robin Bawa played, adding more size to the lineup. . . . Vancouver left wing Geoff Courtnall was suspended by the NHL for the game pending review of a non-penalty slashing incident against Joel Otto during a loss to Calgary Saturday. . . . The Kings were shutout by Vancouver last week, not Calgary, as mentioned in a story on the Ducks’ loss to Calgary in Friday’s editions.