ANAHEIM – I can officially report now that winter has dog days, too, the Ducks and Kings playing a game Sunday that was barely house broken.
Two teams searching for the same thing – a spark, any spark – convened before probably the quietest sellout at Honda Center since the Ducks’ most recent Game 7 loss here.
It wasn’t until the final 90 seconds, with one net empty and both teams scrambling, that the building rose as one, the loudest response coming as the horn marked the arrival of a 1-0 Ducks victory.
A much-needed, if not much-thrilling victory.
“We have to get back to defense first,” forward Ryan Kesler said. “For the last little bit, we kind of went sideways. But it’s nice to see we’re back on track.”
Sorry, I don’t mean to sound whiny or anything, especially seeing how much I paid for admission to this game.
But, particularly for Ducks versus Kings, this wasn’t exactly reminiscent of the days when the feelings were so thick and charred even Teemu Selanne dropped his gloves and began swinging.
That incident, however, came just as the 2010-11 playoffs were about to be unleashed, both the Ducks and Kings amped for the postseason. This is still February, and the mood today is a little different.
The Ducks entered this game as adrift as their recent performance with a man advantage, the term power play rather misleading for a unit that had scored once in its previous 21 opportunities.
The Kings came in having lost 4 of 5 and still trying to figure out how to win with a goal-challenged offense that had been more productive than only five other teams.
So, for one matchup at least, this was less of a rivalry and more of a, well, revivalry, if you don’t mind me making up a word, both clubs looking to reboot seasons that have sagged of late.
In fact, when the Ducks and Kings came out for pregame warmups Sunday wearing the same jerseys, I thought they had agreed to join forces in an attempt to ensure that someone around here makes the playoffs.
Turns out, even better, the teams were participating in a combined charity effort on behalf of the Orange County Ronald McDonald House, and now who says the Ducks and Kings haven’t done anything special lately?
“I thought we played 60 minutes against a good hockey team,” Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “We want to be playing that brand of hockey. That’s what we’re trying to build toward.”
Getzlaf assisted on the lone goal of the game, which is not a surprise since he’s the team leader in such things.
The fact it was scored by Josh Manson, however, was something no one would have dreamed to forecast, including Manson’s loved ones.
Just 1:19 into the second period, the defenseman skated down into an open area and easily beat Kings goalie Peter Budaj thanks to Getzlaf’s heads-up feed.
“Any time Getzy gets the puck and turns up with it on that side of the ice, I know he sees you,” Manson explained. “He sees everything on the ice.”
The goal was just the second of the season for Manson and his first at Honda Center since April 1, which was an entire head coach ago for this team.
Of course, when things are going as ho-hum as they have been for the Ducks, nobody is going to get too particular about who’s scoring, as long as someone is doing so.
“If we play like that, we can play with anybody,” winning goalie John Gibson said. “At this time of the season, this is how it’s going to be…Toward the end of the year, games are going to be tight. Not much room for error.”
As of this writing, the Ducks are in a playoff position and the Kings are just outside a wild-card spot, meaning both could advance to the postseason.
As everyone knows, for a winter sport, hockey decides nothing until the spring anyway.
But both these teams expected to be better than this, the Kings at least having the added obstacle of losing goalie Jonathan Quick. Over the next seven weeks, we’ll see if either unlocks the mystery and begins to realize its full possibilities.
Or, if both do.
For the record, there was one episode of the required Ducks-Kings bitterness Sunday. Late in the first period, it came in the form of the balled-up hands of Jared Boll and Kyle Clifford.
Their fight finished at center ice, right on the giant Ducks logo, giving everyone in the building a fine view at what the Freeway Faceoff looks like when its blood pressure spikes.
From there, however, the game was something of a flat line, one the Ducks were more than willing to walk, no matter how mundane it might have appeared.
Contact the writer: jmiller@scng.com
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