NASHVILLE — So what’s worse?
Falling off the tightrope three steps from the end? Or never climbing the ladder at all?
The Ducks limped their way out of Bridgestone Arena, the loudest and happiest roadhouse in Nashville on Monday night.
Their 17-game run toward the Stanley Cup had been adjourned by the Predators, 6-3, although it was tied 3-3 until Colton Sissons scored his third goal of the game with six minutes left. Nashville won in six games and plays either Ottawa or Pittsburgh in Game 1 of the Final on May 29.
When you don’t make the playoffs whatsoever, you normally see the end coming long before it arrives. When you get eliminated in the playoffs, particularly when the series was 2-2 just 96 hours ago, it’s an emergency brake.
Terry Francona, the manager of the Indians, used to relate those endings to running into a brick wall. There’s a concussive effect to the spirit.
“That’s how it goes, you capitalize on your opportunities, and when you don’t, the game is over and the season is over,” Andrew Cogliano said. “To go out like that, it’s a joke.”
The Ducks went out in the most enervating way possible. They were by far the better team in Game 6 from create to crease. If they gave out awards on style points, they would be heading back to Honda Center for Game 7 on Wednesday. But the league goes by goals, and Nashville got four pucks past Jonathan Bernier and needed only 16 shots to do it (the fifth and sixth goals went into an empty net).
Meanwhile, the Ducks ranked 41 shots on goal, had 22 others blocked and missed the net 10 times. They launched 73 pucks toward Pekka Rinne. Nashville shot only 35 more times. So much for Corsi and Fenwick, the metrics that measure such things. Of course, the Kings led the league in Corsi this year. Monday night was Christmas in May for their fans, since it marked the Ducks’ demise, but the Kings themselves never got to Game 1.
It’s difficult to justify copping a plea. Nashville didn’t have Ryan Johansen, who left the arena in an ambulance after Game 4. Johansen did show up Monday night with his crutches, and that brought the loudest boom for the fans, who had also celebrated Trisha Yearwood’s rendition of the National Anthem.
But the Ducks borrowed a Yearwood lyric: “Don’t come cryin’ to me.” In the end they were missing wingers Rickard Rakell and Patrick Eaves. Only 12 players in the NHL regular season scored more goals than Rakell (34), who had 13 points in the 15 playoff games he played. Only 16 players in the NHL regular season scored more goals than Eaves (32).
Then John Gibson (hamstring) couldn’t get through the morning skate and gave way to Jonathan Bernier, who had never started a playoff game even though he’s played 255 times in the regular season. The first Nashville goal went off Brandon Montour’s skate and past him. The other three weren’t easy, but at least a couple could have been stopped, at least by a Western Conference championship-caliber goalie.
“We scored three goals and that’s usually enough in playoff hockey,” Coach Randy Carlyle said. “They scored too many goals on us.”
As Ryan Getzlaf would say, the Predators “played hard on the net, they bore down.” That decides games. The Ducks found various way to score during these playoffs, but they were not an effective finishing team until they got Eaves, who now takes his career season to the free-agent market.
Corey Perry had a playoff season of renewal, as he found his way to the front of the net again, but Nashville was consistently better at jumping on rebounds and making those slick passes down low that hung both Gibson and Bernier out to dry at times.
Ryan Kesler sat at his locker when the room opened, still in full uniform, a towel covering his head. He played with his usual glowering passion, but he scored one point in six games, and Nashville’s top line had its way, at times, in every game.
Getzlaf was also prominent, and he was playing with different linemates nearly every night, but he also couldn’t find the net in the series, and his three assists came in the same game.
Irresistible youth sprouted on both sides. On this night, it sprouted in Nashville’s field. Sissons is 23, a center who made his way into Nashville’s lineup only this season but got bumped up to the first line when Johansen was hurt. He has eight goals in his regular-season career and now has eight goals in the playoffs. The game had barely ended when someone had updated his Wikipedia page, describing him as a “Canadian professional duck hunter.”
The Ducks could have used Nick Ritchie, especially with two other wingers hurt. Instead Ritchie tried to inflict injury, boarding Victor Arvidsson and bloodying his face. That got Ritchie a five-minute major and an ejection.
He played two minutes and 52 seconds. Ironically the Ducks killed off the major penalty with a flourish and actually dominated play the rest of the night. But it was an example of the distemper that has plagued the Ducks, off and on, for years now.
“You’re proud of the guys who are playing through a lot of stuff,” Cogliano said. “They’re getting shot up to play and they’re putting it on the line. Injuries happen, and Nashville is missing its best player as well.
“They won the series, they’re a good team. I don’t think they’re much better. Sometimes in these games, it’s not meant to be. There’s no reason it shouldn’t have gone our way tonight. We had a lot of good looks. We scored three goals and probably should have five. Three goals on the road, you should be able to win.
“When you lose a game like that, it kicks you a little harder.”
The teams that feel the most pain in the hockey playoffs also have less time to overcome it. The pursuit ended with a long, painful fall. In time the Ducks will realize it wasn’t trivial.