The thrust of a 10-1-1 finish to the regular season didn't serve the Ducks in a startling 3-0 defeat to the San Jose Sharks at a soldout Honda Center. Meanwhile, the Sharks didn't resemble the team that lost five of their last six coming into the playoffs, as they outplayed the Ducks on their way to a 1-0 lead in the First Round series.
It was Anaheim's first loss at Honda Center in exactly a month (March 12 vs. St. Louis), as they had won seven in a row and 10 of the last 11 there. A pivotal Game 2 comes Saturday night at Honda Center before the series turns to San Jose.
"They played how you're supposed to play in the playoffs," said Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano of the Sharks. "They played patient and played the right way. When you get chances, you have to score on them. You just execute the game plan. They did that.
"It seemed like we were stuck in the regular season and trying to make plays in the neutral zone or turning the pucks over. They executed a lot better."
Following a scoreless first, the Sharks reeled off three goals in a span of eight minutes to break the game open, and that turned out to be all they needed.
Two of those came from Evander Kane, who buried a Joe Pavelski feed in the slot on the 5 on 3power play to make it 1-0, then converted on a 2-on-1 rush off another Pavelski dish for the two-goal lead.
The Ducks put themselves on their heels with six penalties in the game while only earning three power plays of their own (one of which was only awarded in the final seconds).
"That's one thing we talked about," Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin said. "Way too many penalties. When we had success down the stretch, we didn't take as many. One or two a game. That's it. It was uncharacteristic for our team."
San Jose made it 3-0 when the Ducks once again failed to clear the zone, and Brent Burns punched in a shot from inside the blue line through traffic.
"We just didn't seem to have our legs, our hands or our minds tonight," lamented Ducks coach Randy Carlyle. "We didn't executive with the puck, we didn't show any aggressiveness in our skating game and we showed we were weak mentally from the standpoint of undisciplined acts we committed."
The Ducks only managed 13 shots to San Jose's 25 through the first 40 minutes with very few quality scoring chances. Things didn't get a whole lot better in the third as the dramatic comeback that has become a trademark of the Ducks never materialized.
"We just have to regroup," Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. "It's one game. Best of seven. It's about the process and getting better every day. We have to understand what we did wrong and build from it now."
