Old Time Hockey Is Boring, but It Works

“Old time hockey!” Ducks Coach Ron Wilson may or may not have yelled at his bedraggled troops as he unveiled the lineup that turned around the franchise Sunday evening.

Anatoli Semenov, first-line center and playmaking dynamo from Moscow--scratched.

Valeri Karpov, the Soviet sharpshooter often referred to as “The Chelyabinsk Flash”--scratched.

Two-thirds of the highly touted, high-octane Kariya Line--scratching and itching in finely tailored suits up near the Forum rafters.

“Old time hockey!” you imagined the Ducks shouting back at Wilson, 20 real-life Hanson brothers from the all-time vulcanized-rubber cult classic “Slap Shot.”

“Just like Troy Loney!”

It was back to the lunch bucket for the Ducks, who had boldly tried to step out on the town this season and run with the Modanos and the Fedorovs.

Those last three final scores again:

Ducks 2, St. Louis 7.

Ducks 2, Dallas 9.

Ducks 2, Detroit 5.

New and improved?

More dashing and daring?

Wilson studied the numbers for about 3.4 seconds and decided it was time to get down, dirty and dull again.

So Semenov and Karpov wound up on the bench for the first installment of the Duck-King wars of ‘95, Mighty Muck hockey returned to the ice and the immediate result was a plodding, methodical, molar-grinding 3-2 Duck victory Wilson later likened to “watching paint dry.”

What this portends for the short-term future of Duck hockey is enough to send shivers down a season-ticket holder’s spine.

“Does this mean you have to be boring to win?” Wilson was asked outside the Forum’s visiting dressing room.

Wilson didn’t even flinch.

“At the moment, yeah,” he replied. “Who the heck do we have who can make us exciting and win?

“Paul Kariya is not Wayne Gretzky. Oleg Tverdovsky is not Paul Coffey. Maybe in a couple years, they’ll be there, but not now.

“We have a 48-game season this year. We have a good chance to make the playoffs--if we do it right.”

Right is a relative term, of course, quite different in meaning when applied in Anaheim as opposed to Quebec or Pittsburgh.

Right, as defined by Duck defenseman Bobby Dollas, means “playing strong along the boards, playing strong in the corners and working harder than everybody else. That’s Duck hockey.”

Subtitled “What Rhymes With Snoring?”, that was the Mighty Duck way en route to 33 victories during a record-setting inaugural season. Those Ducks knew their limitations, which were many and multi-faceted, and Wilson made sure they played within them more often than not. Slowly but surely, the Ducks went places.

The arrival of Kariya and Karpov--two guys who can skate, shoot and chew gum at the same time--got the Ducks hot under their blue collars. Look at these kids, they said to themselves, wide-eyed. Look, they get the puck over there and they take it across one line, two lines, three lines in a row.

The Ducks thought they had just been upgraded from coach to first class.

Last week, however, taught them to check the boarding pass one more time.

“We tried to skate with Dallas and St. Louis, even with Detroit,” Dollas said, shaking his head. “We were trying to open it up against some of the top offensive teams around.

“We don’t have the horses.”

The Ducks have the hoof prints on their chests to prove it.

“We just got away from what we were doing last year,” left wing Tim Sweeney said. “For us to win, we have to play a dirty, smart game. We can’t open it up. This is our second year in the league. We don’t have the firepower some other teams have. The last three games, we must have given up 27 golden opportunities.”

And the Blues, Stars and Red Wings converted on 21 of them.

Wilson decided part of the solution was to send his team a message. Thus, Semenov and Karpov were offered a seat and the ballyhooed Kariya line was disbanded after two weeks.

“I wasn’t worried about how (Semenov and Karpov) were playing with Paul,” Wilson said. “I was worried about them playing with anybody, period. They have to the job defensive, and they just weren’t doing it. . . .

“Tony has to play better, simple as that. He should be the best player on this team. Val’s a rookie, and some times he’s been tentative. I wanted to give him a chance to relax, sit back and see how easy this game looks. ‘See, it looks easy! Look at those openings!’ ”

A fine idea this was, assuming, of course, Karpov didn’t nod off between the first and second periods.

“Tonight,” Sweeney said, “was the epitome of how we have to play. Smart hockey, physical hockey and jump on our chances. As long as we’re not giving up 50 shots a game, we should be all right.”

It is, after all, a proud Duck tradition that dates back weeks, even months.

“It wasn’t pretty,” Dollas finally assessed, “but you know what they say. ‘That’s Duck hockey.’ ”