What we learned from Ducks’ 4-2 exhibition loss to the Kings

What we learned from the Ducks’ 4-2 exhibition loss to the Kings on Sunday at the Honda Center:

It was only a preseason game

But the Ducks hate losing to the Kings no matter the circumstances. The Kings’ seven-game victory in the second round last spring left the Ducks brooding all summer; losing two preseason games to the Kings last week didn’t clear that sour taste.

“Lose to them and lose even in a shootout game like [Thursday] night, a stupid, non-meaningful game, you still take it hard,” Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau said.

The Ducks also dislike seeing and hearing Kings fans attend games in Anaheim in significant numbers. Many chants of “Go Kings go” broke out on Sunday, and only some, not all, were drowned out by Ducks fans. Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano said hearing support for the Kings in Anaheim stinks — or a word similar to that — but he acknowledged that the Kings have given their fans plenty to cheer about.

“It’s now a pretty significant rivalry and I think at the end of the day they’re the team to beat, bottom line,” Cogliano said. “They’re the best team in the league. They’ve proved that the last couple years and you could see every time you play against them, no matter who’s in the lineup -- young kids, regular players, they play the exact same way. So until you’re beating them, you’re not going far.”

Lose something, gain something else

The retirement of Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu took more than 2,500 regular-season games’ experience out of the Ducks’ lineup, but the team certainly will be younger this season and likely will be faster.

Cogliano, William Karlsson and Emerson Etem have the speed to give opposing defenders a lot of trouble, and they’re not alone.

Dany Heatley is ‘fine’

Or so Coach Bruce Boudreau said when asked why the veteran winger had missed most of the third period of Sunday’s game. And we all know NHL personnel are so up-front and candid about injuries.

Heatley played well alongside Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry and assisted on the Ducks’ first goal, by Sami Vatanen. He has two goals and three points in three exhibition games and is making a strong case to start the season in that prime spot. If he actually is sore or injured, he has all week to heal: the Ducks don’t play again until next Saturday, their exhibition finale, at home against San Jose.

Cogliano said the Ducks were “a little bit in-between” and not yet feeling right about their game.

“It looks like there’s easy things to fix but you have to fix them or you’re going to be rolling into the season not feeling good,” he said.

Twitter: @helenenothelen