These Ducks Prove They Can Hang in the NHL

After five periods, 19 minutes and 28 seconds of severely land-locked hockey, with the buzzer about to sound on Regular-Season Defeat No. 2, a Mighty Duck, finally, went airborne.

Bob Corkum took the dive, since the only shot his team had was a desperate one. His first attempt had caromed off the leg pad of New York Islander goaltender Ron Hextall, sending the puck fluttering above the mass of humanity dog-piled in the crease. Oh, the temptation--the potential tying goal, right in front of Corkum’s eyes, but precious inches out of reach.

What the hell, Corkum said, we won’t have this kind of chance again any time soon.

So he went for it--taking a header, flying straight at the net.

In mid-air, with both feet off the ground, Corkum took a swat at the puck and got just enough stick on it to squirt a knuckler high and wide of a stunned Hextall’s grasp.

Corkum was face-down in ice shavings when the puck hit the back of the net. Goal, Ducks. Tied game. Thirty-two-point-seven seconds left in regulation.

For the Ducks, it was as sweet a scene as Bobby Orr’s legendary victorious leap after the decisive goal in the 1970 Stanley Cup finals. Maybe not quite as significant in the grand scheme, but after Friday’s franchise-christening catastrophe against Detroit, the Ducks’ first official point in the standings was within reach, making this news worth phoning the grandparents about.

Bobby Corr-kum, uncorking one for history.

But, expansion ulcers are made of what happened next to the Ducks. They pushed the Islanders to overtime, but couldn’t push another puck past Hextall. At 3-3, they were already living on borrowed time. The Islanders were road weary, beaten down by nearly two weeks on the West Coast, but they are also four months removed from the Wales Conference finals, and with 2:17 left, they showed the young Ducks exactly how far they still have to climb.

Vladimir Malakhov brought the puck up ice, faked one Duck one way, and flicked a no-look pass to Pierre Turgeon on the right wing-- behind the back. Enough of this tomfoolery, Malakhov was saying. Time to put the toys away.

The puck hit Turgeon right on stride and Duck goalie Ron Tugnutt had no chance.

The Ducks were done, lost in the red-light district again.

“After tying the game with 30 seconds left, losing in overtime is a letdown . . . Turgeon didn’t do much all night and he gets a brutal goal like that in the end,” said Tugnutt.

“It was a bad goal. I should have had it. I dropped down, and either he beat me before I got done . . . I don’t know. (My) angle was right, I’m sure it was. He shouldn’t beat me from there.”

The Islanders, of course, had a different take on the situation: These motley Ducks shouldn’t beat us anywhere.

But the Ducks did just that in preseason, 3-2, and nearly caught the Isles again on the rebound.

“We played good enough to win the game,” said Tugnutt, who stopped 21 shots to get the Ducks that close. “There was more of an emphasis of playing like we did in the preseason. We had a great preseason--played with a lot of heart and determination. In the first game, there was no indication of that.”

In the first game, there was no indication that the Ducks belonged in the National Hockey League. They were obliterated by Detroit, 7-2, and spent most of the evening masquerading as season-ticket holders with extremely good seats.

But give the Ducks this much: They made the necessary mid-course corrections. First, they cleaned up their act off-the-ice--shelving the Menace of Katella, the immensely annoying singing Iceman, and toning down the pregame show from ridiculous to merely over-the-top.

On-the-ice was soon to follow.

“Tonight we were more gritty,” Tugnutt said. “It didn’t seem like we wanted to die, which is a good sign.”