Giguere makes trip, hopes for quick return

The Ducks arrived at O2 Arena on Wednesday for practice, trying to get ready for the two games this weekend against the Kings that open the NHL regular season.

Although veteran goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere appeared in a colossal bandage atop his right leg, he pronounced himself “not very far” from recovery from his hernia surgery. “If not this weekend . . . hopefully one of those games” in Detroit, Columbus or Pittsburgh, he said, referring to the team’s schedule next week beginning on Opening Night No. 2 on Oct. 3, when the rest of the league begins play.

As to why he didn’t just wait over there, he said, “There’s many reasons why it’s good for me to be here. As well as starting the season, I think it’s going to be a team-building week,” a chance to foment “some team spirit.”

For about 12 of the team members, fomenting today will entail golf.

The many Canadian reporters sent here for the NHL lid-lifters got a first chat with Todd Bertuzzi as a Duck, and one found him at his most amiable in five years.

Brad May, a veteran of 16 seasons, winced at a question about Steve Moore, the man Bertuzzi mauled famously in 2004 in a game against Colorado, then said he would give his last answers about that subject.

“We all change,” May said as the two begin their third term as teammates, the first two in Vancouver. “We all have to adapt to change. . . . He’s a hell of a friend of mine. We’re very, very close. Everybody in this locker room’s excited to have him here.”

Said Coach Randy Carlyle, “All Todd Bertuzzi has done is, he’s come in here and worked his butt off, hasn’t been anything but a true professional,” and weighed “under 230, and it shows when he skates out there. He’s moving very, very well.”