Stars Shoot Down Ducks With Barrage of Goals

DALLAS —  For a solid 60 minutes Wednesday at Reunion Arena, the Mighty Ducks didn’t allow a goal or even a single shot.

It was during the hour-long closed-door meeting Coach Ron Wilson called in the morning as he attempted to revive his suddenly faltering team after St. Louis scored seven goals against it Tuesday night.

By game time Wednesday night, the rubber was flying again and it was even worse. The Dallas Stars scored three goals in the first period, two in the second and four more in the third in a 9-2 victory that set records for most goals against the Ducks, largest margin of defeat and most shots allowed--a mind-boggling 51.

The Stars’ Mike Modano, a 50-goal scorer last season who had only one goal in his first five games, broke Wayne Gretzky’s record for most points in a game against the Ducks with a career-best six, on two goals and four assists. Gretzky had five points in a victory at The Pond last season.

The Ducks played seven rookies, including Paul Kariya and 18-year-old defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky. But the blame lies elsewhere, in the laps of many of the players who won 33 games in their first season.

“We talk about bumps in the road. This is our biggest one yet,” Wilson said. “It’s not just how the young guys are responding. Where the hell are the rest of the guys? You don’t see Oleg out there on the ice for all the goals. Where the hell are the people who played last year?”

By 7:27 of the second period, Wilson replaced Mikhail Shtalenkov with Guy Hebert, switching goalies in mid-game for the second time in 24 hours in another mission of mercy.

“The goalies are back on their heels as well, with the volume of shots they’re facing,” Wilson said.

Who could blame them? The Ducks were hemmed in their own zone much of the game, managing only 28 shots, none in the first 3:33 of a five-minute power play in the second period.

The offense is struggling, but it starts with a defense that can’t get the puck out of the Ducks’ end.

Defenseman Bobby Dollas had a plus-minus rating of plus-20 last season, unheard of on an expansion team. But he’s dropping at an alarming rate.

One of the biggest questions from the outset of this sophomore season has been whether the rookies and veterans will gel--and whether the journeymen and fringe players who overachieved last season will remember how much work it took.

“I think we forget that sometimes last year we had to take a punch in the head to hold up somebody,” Dollas said. “The team hasn’t changed that much. It’s a real copout to blame the new guys. Our new guys are working real hard. We’re not doing the little things we did last year. If a team goes in the (Ducks’) zone two on three, we’re letting guys slip away. It’s a lack of communication between the forwards and the defense, and what happens now is you don’t trust each other. Instead of in-your-face hockey, it’s like putting your stick out.”

A rookie spared the Ducks from being shut out. With his team down, 7-0, and the Stars on a power play after Todd Ewen took a five-minute major for elbowing, Kariya sprinted out to pick up the puck for a shorthanded breakaway, beating goalie Andy Moog to it and scoring into an open net at 13:05 of the third period. It was his seventh point in seven games.

Tverdovsky, another rookie, scored the other goal--his first in the NHL--at 15:55, making the score 8-2. Dave Gagner scored the Stars’ final goal--the 16th against the Ducks in two nights--with 11 seconds left.

“I believe there’s nothing bad about anything as long as you learn from it,” Kariya said. “If you learn, it’s not a bad situation.

The only solace is that they are facing facts early.

“We knew we weren’t going to win 48 games,” Dollas said. “We’re 3-4. That’s one game under .500. Our goal was to play .500 hockey, and that’s still our attitude. We’ve got to be sure guys don’t put their heads down. Last year when the other team scored it was no big deal, we’d grind and grind. This year, it’s oh, no, not again.”

Duck Notes

Dallas winger Shane Churla received a game misconduct for checking from behind in the second period and Duck winger Stu Grimson received one for cross-checking in the third when he pushed Paul Broten’s head into the boards with his fist after Broten scored. . . . Center Patrik Carnback was scratched because of illness.