Ducks are in a fighting mood

CHICAGO – The Ducks won’t apologize for their willingness to mix it up with opposing teams.

Any team that has 65 fighting majors and logged 1,315 penalty minutes has to assume that they’ll face some teams that won’t like being pushed around.

But the Ducks also believe that there’s a line to be drawn in a physical hockey game and they felt the Chicago Blackhawks crossed it in a 3-0 loss Wednesday night at the United Center.

George Parros and Sean O’Donnell were among a few players who took exception to some Blackhawks, in particular enforcer Ben Eager, taking shots at captain Chris Pronger in his first game since breaking his jaw.

Pronger wore a football-style mask to protect the jaw that was broken against the same Blackhawks on Feb. 24 in Anaheim.

“It’s pretty classless to go after a guy when he’s hurt like that,” Parros said, speaking about Eager. “You have to expect something back… . There were a few guys taking advantage of his injury.

“There’s a code of conduct out there to some extent. You finish your check and then you don’t ease up on him. Throwing a couple of extra shots with hands to the face is pretty low.”

Parros jumped Eager and got an instigator penalty when the Blackhawks winger didn’t drop his gloves. O’Donnell then fought Chicago defenseman James Wisniewski, with both picking up game misconduct penalties when the referees were cleaning up after the Parros-Eager bout.

“Some of their guys seemed to be a little braver with Chris and his thing on his jaw and they took a couple of shots at him there,” O’Donnell said. “We kind of took exception to that.”

The Ducks say they have no problem with teams being physical with them.

“We feel like we play hard,” O’Donnell said. “We finish our checks and we expect other teams to do the same. And when they do, that’s part of the game.

“Maybe there was disagreement in our minds. We felt like they were taking a couple of liberties at a guy who was prone. There’s an injury. We wanted to stand up for that and stand up for a teammate.”

Pronger appreciated the response.

“They did a great job,” he said. “George comes in and takes care of business. We’re able to kill off penalties like that. It’s something that makes us stronger and brings us together.”

—–

With Pronger returning to the lineup after sitting out two games, newly acquired Marc-Andre Bergeron was a healthy scratch after playing in his first two games with the team.

Bergeron played an average of 13 minutes against Calgary and Ottawa in Pronger’s absence and was a plus-one against the Senators.

“We thought Bergeron played well,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “He moved the puck well. He was responsible defensively, he didn’t get caught out of position. He played our system. Those are all positives for us.”

Bergeron figures to play a role similar to that of Ric Jackman last season where he may see spot duty against certain teams. Carlyle would like to see him push his regular six defensemen.

“What we would like him to do is we’d like him to compete for a position,” Carlyle said. “Because we think there’s some areas for improvement in some of our players.

“The more competition that you can provide for a position within your team, that usually bodes well for players playing to a higher level. That’s really what it’s all about.”

—–

Center Andrew Ebbett was sent back to the Ducks’ minor-league affiliate in Portland, Maine. Ebbett, who leads the Pirates in scoring this season, has been shuttled back and forth twice in the last eight days.

eric.stephens@latimes.com