Flames Bring Out Ducks’ Rugged Side

The Mighty Ducks beat the Calgary Flames at the game the Canadian team prides itself on having mastered, a blend of grit and muscle and, when nothing else works, the sheer will to prevail.

And because they did, the Ducks earned the right to try and do it again Wednesday and part the sea of red at Calgary’s Pengrowth Saddledome.

Scott Niedermayer’s centering pass glanced off Flame defenseman Rhett Warrener and eluded goalie Miikka Kiprusoff with 5:37 left in the third period Monday, completing a rally that lifted the Ducks to a 2-1 victory and tied the teams’ playoff series at three games each. They matched the rugged Flames jab for jab and push for push and went one better by finally capitalizing on their ninth power play of the game.

“You do whatever you have to do to match their intensity and focus,” Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei said. “If it took this kind of game to beat them, even better for us, because we showed we can play this way.”

They won by the slimmest of margins, by half the width of the crossbar, the difference between joy and frustration after a shot by Calgary’s Kristian Huselius caromed off the metal bar behind Duck goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov with about seven minutes left.

But they won and they prolonged what has been an eventful and intriguing season for at least one game.

“I expected a long series,” Duck winger Joffrey Lupul said. “A lot of people predicted seven and I don’t think anyone on either team is too surprised.”

Maybe they should be.

The Ducks weren’t known as a rugged team, certainly not as rugged as the rough-hewn Flames. The Ducks have speed and they have mobility on defense, but the Flames are bigger and stronger and they have used their size to pound Andy McDonald and Teemu Selanne and to wear down Niedermayer at every opportunity. Their superstar, Jarome Iginla, outplayed Selanne, scoring five goals in the first five games.

But when the Ducks needed to stop Iginla, on Monday, they did. When they needed a goal from Selanne, they got it.

And when they needed solid goaltending, they got it -- from Bryzgalov, the unflappable Russian who has stepped up when 2003 playoff star Jean-Sebastien Giguere could not.

“He did a great job to keep us in the game,” Salei said of Bryzgalov, who stopped 21 shots.

Bryzgalov, who lost the series opener by a 2-1 score, said he was told he’d start shortly before the game began. “I was not nervous,” he said. “Why? Because it’s hockey. Why am I supposed to nervous?

“I feel no pressure. I’m relaxing and just play the game.”

Only a game -- but what a game.

“It’s good for him if he was not nervous,” Salei said.

Selanne said he offered the 25-year-old goalie some encouragement moments before the opening faceoff. “I told him, ‘You don’t get so many chances like this in your career. Do your job and keep smiling,’ ” Selanne said.

“That was a live or die game for us. Now we both have to face the same thing Wednesday.”

The Ducks face the prospect of raising their game to this level or higher. Neither team has won two straight games in this series, and the Flames will be able to draw upon the energy of a roaring crowd. Asked whether the Ducks’ performance Monday had been their best game of the series, Niedermayer refused to be caught up in the euphoria of the moment or resort to superlatives.

“I think we played well. We had to,” he said. “We had no choice.

“And now, we have to do it again. All we got is another crack at it.”

That’s a lot. Another crack at prolonging the season, at earning a chance to move on and play Colorado in the second round -- a series in which the sixth-seeded Ducks would have home-ice advantage over the seventh-seeded Avalanche, which upset the Dallas Stars -- at earning respect for themselves and their game.

In this new NHL, where speed and skill are supposed to count for so much, the Flames had been proving that good, old-fashioned grit and sweat and tight checking were still valuable assets come playoff time. The Ducks matched them in all of those categories Monday, and gained confidence in knowing they could do that and still make good use of their speed and agility.

“If we used our speed, we can make them take penalties,” Lupul said. “When you use your speed and make good decisions with the puck, the other team has got to take penalties.”

The Ducks took confidence from their victory Monday. Now, they must build on that and grow beyond what they might have imagined they were capable of doing. They’ve already exceeded their expectations once. Twice, and they’ve earned the right to call this a successful season, not just a season of promise and hope, but one of accomplishment.