Ducks Hold Off Bruins for Tie : Hockey: They are outshot, 38-17, but Tugnutt makes 37 saves.

The only official Mighty Duck tie in NHL history before Friday night was the kind that has been seen around the necks of team personnel.

The Ducks took care of that, fending off the Boston Bruins for a 1-1 tie in front of 16,850 at Anaheim Arena for the first tie in the team’s four-game history.

The Bruins avoided the fate of the Edmonton Oilers, who became the first team to lose to the Ducks Wednesday. But just barely. It took two saves by Bruin goaltender John Blue in the final 15 seconds of the five-minute overtime to preserve the tie.

The Ducks didn’t get their second victory, but it was a point, and for an expansion team eager to avoid the 24-point performances of Ottawa and San Jose last season, that means something.

The Ducks managed two shots in overtime and the Bruins one, but the Bruins dominated the shot clock for the game, 38-17. Still the Ducks held them off with gritty defense, fending off two Bruin power plays in the third period.

Duck goaltender Ron Tugnutt made 37 saves--including stopping a penalty shot by Cam Neely in the second period.

The Ducks managed only one third-period shot themselves. The one was a close one, as speedy right wing Joe Sacco split two Bruin defenders and took a pass out in front. It was just him and Blue, but his shot hit the right post and caromed away.

As the third period went on, the Bruins pushed harder for chances, but they came empty. Joe Juneau made an elegant play to put the puck behind defenseman Bill Houlder and then cut open to retrieve it, but he couldn’t get off a shot afterward. Moments later, the Bruins had a two-on-one but threw it away with a bad pass.

It was a game that saw another first added to the expansion team’s archives--the first penalty shot by an opponent.

However, Tugnutt saw that the first time an opponent (ital) scores (ital) on a penalty shot will have to be another night, stopping Cam Neely at 10:58 of the second with the score tied, 1-1.

The Bruins were awarded the penalty shot the Ducks’ Todd Ewen fell on the puck in the crease as a crowd of Boston players were trying to shove the puck in the net.

Neely, who has appeared in only 24 of the Bruins’ last 168 regular-season gmaes with ongoing knee and thigh problems, skated in and got off a fairly weak forehand shot that Tugnutt stopped with his body, the puck hitting him in the upper chest.

After a scoreless first period in which the Bruins and Ducks were deadlocked with nine shots each, Duck right wing Joe Sacco broke the scoreless tie when he jumped on a loose puck in the right circle and drove it home for a 1-0 lead 46 seconds into the second period.

The puck was loose after Bruin defenseman Jim Wiemer blocked a shot by Anatoli Semenov, but left the puck behind as he fended off Semenov.

The Bruins tied the score at 8:42 of the second on a goal credited to Joe Juneau after Neely curled in toward the crease from the right wing. Neely couldn’t get off much of a shot, but was able to send the puck in front of the net where Duck defenseman Sean Hill was trying to hold off Juneau. An instant later, the puck was in the net, and Juneau was given the goal despite the objection of Duck Coach Ron Wilson, who probably was arguing that Juneau kicked the puck in with his skate.

There was a bit of an old-home feel to the game, which included the oddity of a native Southern Californian starting in goal for the Bruins.

Blue, 27, normally the Bruins’ backup, was born in Huntington Beach and lives in El Toro during the offseason. He was attending high school in San Jose when he left California to chase his NHL dream by playing for a junior hockey team in Iowa. He was appearing in his 25th NHL game Friday.

Duck Notes

KLAC did not broadcast overtime. The radio station broke away after the third period to the pregame show for the Lakers’ exhibition against the Utah Jazz in Honolulu.