Morning skate: Beauchemin expected to rejoin Ducks’ lineup tonight

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Tonight’s game against Dallas at the Honda Center has double significance for the Ducks.

Not only can they clinch a playoff spot with a victory (or with an overtime loss if Minnesota beats Nashville), they’re expected to have defenseman Francois Beauchemin back in their lineup for the first time since he injured his left knee Nov. 14 and underwent surgery.

Coach Randy Carlyle said Beauchemin, whose physical presence and power-play contributions were keenly missed, will be available for even-strength duty and maybe some penalty killing time.

‘We’ll monitor, obviously, the number of minutes. We don’t want him out there playing 25 minutes tonight that’s for sure,’ Carlyle said after the Ducks’ morning skate at the Honda Center. ‘We’d like to make sure that he gets his feet underneath him.

‘He’s pretty much ready to go from a standpoint of his emotions, and you can see he’s wired up and ready to play.’

Beauchemin said the prospect of clinching a postseason berth tonight added to his anticipation.

‘It’s been a while, and I’m pretty excited to come back,’ he said.

‘I think I’ll probably play on the third pair, 10, 15 minutes. We don’t really want to rush anything. We still don’t know how it’s going to react to the game, the physical stuff. Everything should be fine. It’s just a matter of coming back slowly and we don’t want to rush anything.’

That caution could lead to him sitting out Saturday’s season finale at Phoenix to spare his knee the stress of playing back-to-back games.

‘We’ll see what happens after the game. If it’s fine, I’m good to go. If not, we’ll take tomorrow night off and get ready for the first game of the playoffs,’ he said.

‘So far I haven’t had any setbacks. I had a big test Tuesday with that two-hour practice, and Wednesday and yesterday went the way I wanted.’

His teammates said Beauchemin’s return should provide a boost in a lot of areas.

‘It’s pretty amazing. He’s been out for so long and he has worked so hard,’ winger Corey Perry said. ‘He’s been here every day early. When you see somebody like that working so hard to get back in it’s great.

‘It’s going to be awesome. He brings a lot to the table. He’s physical. He’s got a good shot, he’s smart. He’s a big key to our defense and he has been for a while.’

Perry also said the Ducks never doubted they’d be able to regroup and get back into the top eight in the West.

‘It’s a long season. We always kept that faith that we knew we had a chance and if we put a string together, like we have, and kept moving forward, that it could be a possibility,’ he said. ‘We’ve worked hard to get to this position and it comes down to tonight, to get the two points, and to get two points tomorrow.’

Bobby Ryan, the NHL’s rookie scoring leader with 30 goals and 56 points, said there were some ‘dark days’ when the Ducks’ chances or reviving might have seemed grim, ‘but I don’t think anybody in this room really doubted it. I think we had people outside doing that and certainly it was a matter of time until we had a run and got our consistency together and we seem to have done that of late.’

He also the Ducks are determined not to squander this chance tonight.

‘I think this is a team that realizes what’s at stake,’ he said, ‘and despite the fact we’ve had four days off, which is usually a reason for us to come out with a slow start, I think we can all expect to have a good start because everybody realizes it’s desperation and we’re really getting down to the wire.’

More later at www.latimes.com/sports

-- Helene Elliott