AFTER BLANK EXPRESSION, THEY'RE IN DEEP HOLE.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

ANAHEIM - Maybe privately, in their secret little hearts, they just thought they were better. That the major work required had been accomplished by taking a game in Detroit.

And maybe this morning the Ducks are not feeling so mighty. Are thinking this Western Conference finals matchup just might be a tad more difficult than figured.

That can happen when you're absolutely embarrassed on your home ice. When you're toyed with like some local club team. When you bring the series back to Anaheim all tied up at 1-1 and then suffer the worst loss in your playoff history.

The Red Wings played almost perfect hockey Tuesday night. The only problem they had was keeping their helmets on.

They started quickly, got a couple breaks, kept up the pressure and then just rolled, finally leaving the Ducks in soul-searching mode with a 5-0 victory in Game 3.

That would be five goals for the Red Wings, zero for the Ducks. That would be one complete, total humbling.

"There's nothing we can do about it now," said Ducks defenseman Chris Pronger. "We lost 5-0. We have to let it go. We can't dwell on it. We have to throw this one out. Obviously, it wasn't our best effort."

No, given how well the Ducks had been playing, this outcome was about as expected as President Bush suddenly announcing that desert war thing just might have been a bad idea.

Things started to snowball in the first period, and then went straight to avalanche mode. Suddenly the Ducks weren't the team that was constantly on the attack, that received the sterling goaltending, that seemed like the better team even when not ahead.

It was a good game for Duck fans not to be able to find on cable, a good game to pretend that never happened.

It did happen, of course, and now the key for the Ducks will be to see how they respond in Thursday's Game4, a game they suddenly must win.

"Mentally it will be tough because these are tough ones to turn the page on," said Ducks coach Randy Carlyle. "We'll assess some of the things we did poorly tonight. It could be a long video session.

"But we're not a hockey club that doesn't accept responsibility for our actions. We'll take some time, regroup, prepare our team to play the next one. The next game is the most important one."

In truth, there was very little for the Ducks to find encouraging. They again seemed the more aggressive team early, the team controlling the puck, the team on the verge of something.

When Johan Franzen scored from the back door off a nice pass from Mikael Samuelsson to put the Red Wings up 1-0 midway in the first period, it hardly seemed to be something the Ducks couldn't respond to, couldn't overcome.

But Detroit had veteran Dominik Hasek in goal, who is less Red Wing than Redwood, and the shots the Ducks did get on him always rebounded to Detroit.

When Tomas Holmstrom scored in the first period to put Detroit up 2-0, that small leak in the dam was suddenly looking dangerous to all below.

Holmstrom's goal came on this thing foreign to the Ducks called the power play. The Ducks failed to score in their four power plays Tuesday, leaving them with an 0-for-32 stretch.

When Detroit scored early in the second period on the one goal that Jean-Sebastien Giguere probably should have stopped to make it 3-0, Carlyle made a goalie change.

Giguere came into Tuesday allowing only 1.51 goals a game in the playoffs, best in the league.

"He's just trying to get the momentum going for us," Giguere said. "Obviously you could tell it wasn't my best effort out there. It was 3-0. You have to try something."

Carlyle said it wasn't that he was disappointed with Giguere.

"It was a question of trying to stir something up, trying to stop the bleeding," he said.

Like most everything else the Ducks tried, it quickly proved disastrous. Seventeen seconds after Ilya Bryzgalov skated in front of the net, Holmstrom scored again. It was 4-0 and an official rout and the Ducks started playing the tough guy, something they do better than any team in the NHL anyway. They were the most-penalized team in the league this season.

Shortly after Holmstrom scored his second goal, he was hammered into the boards by Pronger and Rob Niedermayer. Pronger's forearm check into Homstrom's head knocked off his helmet and bloodied his head.

The Honda Center crowd, which had been uninspired all night, reached a new low, not only cheering the hit, but then cheering as Holmstrom lay on the ice bleeding and appearing to struggle for consciousness.

Niedermayer received a major penalty and was ejected, though Pronger's hit seemed more vicious.

"Did we lose our composure?" Carlyle asked. "I'd have to say that it left lots of room for improvement."

Like the rest of the game. It didn't matter which brothers they had, how well their goalie had been playing, how much they had been controlling the puck. The Red Wings responded to their loss in Detroit with their finest effort of the series. Now it's the Ducks' turn, and now they know exactly what they're up against.

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