It’s Game On in the NHL, but Ducks Off Their Game

EDMONTON, Canada — “GAME ON!” the NHL cried Friday night, on placards hanging over concession stands, on dasher boards near center ice and on T-shirts the league was hawking from every corner of the Edmonton Coliseum--a touching sentiment sure to warm the heart of every hockey fan who rolled out of bed the last 3 1/2 months grumbling, “GAME OFF!”

These T-shirts were selling like year-old fruitcakes, too, because hockey fans are smarter than Gary Bettman thinks. You can take their sport away from them, lock out their favorite players, toss half the season in the Dumpster before announcing you’ve miraculously salvaged the last 48 games and they’ll come back, as 14,967 did here Friday. But don’t try to con them with a promotion that celebrates the fun stoppage you created and perpetuated.

While the NHL was debasing itself again, the Ducks and the Edmonton Oilers attempted to regain their bearings on ice long abandoned.

It was not a pretty sight.

“It felt like I hadn’t played in 10 years,” Duck winger Todd Ewen said once three periods of botched passes, fanned slap shots and missed bodychecks were mercifully complete.

Ten years . . . .or was it 10 minutes?

“Same old same old,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson mused after watching his team mimic last season’s most popular story line: Ducks lose by a goal.

“We picked up right where we left off,” Wilson said. “Two-to-one, bang, bang.”

It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, which is why it was so painful to watch.

On one hand, it was good to see the Skating Eggplants up on the blades again. Ewie and Stewie, Guy between the pipes, Dollas on the blue line--all the old familiar faces.

But on the other, it was sad to see them in this condition--spinning wheels that were out of game shape, aiming touch passes that that exploded off sticks, or missed them altogether, looking very much like a group of hockey players who hadn’t participated in a regular-season game in nine months.

“It’s hard for me to tell you exactly what happened,” said Ewen, cutting right to the point of the matter, as always.

“Speed? It’s hard to tell where we’re at. With such a limited training camp and so much time off, I really didn’t know what to expect . . .

“The hardest part was the hitting. I forgot how draining it is to go through the physical part. When you getting together a couple times a week and playing ‘no-hit’ hockey, you forget what it’s like.”

Ewen laughed a very tired laugh.

“I thought I was in better shape.”

It would have been nice to report Paul Kariya and linemate Valeri Karpov dazzled in their NHL debuts, but post-lockout, they really didn’t have a chance. Kariya was welcomed to the big league with a couple of grimacing Oilers mugs in his face every time he touched the puck. Karpov, in Wilson’s estimation, was “extremely nervous. Val played a little on his heels tonight. He looked a little bit in awe.”

Two passes, virtually identical, encapsulized the rookies’ long night. Both began with Kariya collecting the puck behind the Edmonton net, skating around Oiler goalie Bill Ranford’s left side and zipping the puck across the crease to Karpov, who was open at the far post.

Both times, Karpov, handcuffed by the movement of the puck, failed to get a shot away.

The last time came on a 6-on-4 power play, after the Ducks had pulled their goalie, with three seconds on the clock.

“That play was working in practice,” Wilson said. “But both Paul and Val were playing in their first NHL game. When you’re new to something, everything kind of closes in on you. It’s like you’re wearing blinders. I think that’s what happened to Val on those passes.”

Kariya scolded himself for not being laser-perfect on the last pass. “I aired it out too much,” he said. But, he added, the idea was a good one. There will be other games, 47 of them.

“That’ll come with timing,” Kariya said. “Two weeks from now, I’ll make that same pass and hopefully, it’s a goal.”

Kariya said he was surprised by the intensity of the Oilers’ checking and admitted he was too hesitant to shoot the puck.

“I had a couple opportunities to shoot and I passed on them,” Kariya said. “For whatever reasons, it’s natural for me to want to pass first. I’ve got to shoot more, give them a different look.”

“Uncharted waters,” Wilson called it, and the Ducks are navigating them together. So the launching was a little leaky. Any positives to take away from the experience?

Ewen managed to locate one.

“On a personal note,” he said, “I have 10 games to go till my pension. So it was nice to work toward that.”