Blackhawks Escape the Ducks, 2-0 : Hockey: Goalie Tugnutt fails in his bid to get Anaheim’s second shutout.

Four days after Guy Hebert earned the first shutout in Mighty Duck history, Ron Tugnutt was bidding for the second.

The Ducks were playing the next-to-last game of a difficult trip with a tattered defense. But they entered the third period still locked in a scoreless tie, as they had in shutting out Toronto on Wednesday.

It was shut out or be shut out, and the Chicago Blackhawks prevailed, 2-0, before 18,472 at Chicago Stadium on Sunday. Joe Murphy reached out and poked the puck into the net after being sandwiched between Duck defenseman Randy Ladouceur and Tugnutt at 4:02 of the third. Dirk Graham added an empty-net goal with 17 seconds to play after the Ducks’ only power-play opportunity of the game expired.

“I wanted it today,” Tugnutt said, after watching Hebert shut out Toronto, 1-0, earlier on the trip. “You know going against a good team in their building like this is a tough thing to do. We played a very gutsy game and we should be proud. Coming into the toughest building in the league, playing with discipline the way we did, we should be proud of ourselves. We just came up a little short. It could have very easily gone the other way.”

Chicago goalie Ed Belfour made 22 saves in getting his second shutout of the season.

It was the Ducks’ first game at Chicago Stadium, and their next will be their last. The 1929 building is closing after this season in favor of the new United Center across the street.

Sunday’s game marked left wing Stu Grimson’s first return to Chicago Stadium, and the former Blackhawk enforcer was greeted with “Stu’s Crew” signs in an upper-deck corner and enthusiastic cheers of “Stu-u-u! when he took the ice for the opening faceoff.

“I liked our chances,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “I thought the first two periods we played very well. We were doing exactly what we wanted.”

Four minutes into the period, Chicago defenseman Steve Smith got off a quick point shot after a faceoff, and Murphy came to the net hard.

“That was a tough break,” Tugnutt said. “I felt Joe Murphy was going to deflect the puck right in front of me, and I didn’t want that to happen. I kind of went out after him and beat him to the puck. I deflected it off and it hit him in the chest. He kind of swatted it at the net, I swatted it back at him, and from there I didn’t know where it went. I laid down. Unfortunately, he got the stick on the puck before our guy did.”

Ladouceur was there, playing the man, and couldn’t get the puck. Murphy managed to reach around him and poke the puck into the net behind Tugnutt.

“He made a good play,” Ladouceur said. “I thought I had him tied up.”

Chicago set about protecting the lead.

“At that point, Chicago’s one of the best, if not the best, defensive team in the NHL,” Wilson said. “They did a good job of denying us access to rebounds. We had trouble getting anything going.”

Which left them with nothing.

Duck Notes

Defenseman Sean Hill said he expects to be sidelined a couple of weeks after suffering a rib cage injury Friday at Dallas. It has yet to be determined if his ribs are merely bruised or if one was cracked. . . . Three players have returned to Orange County to be examined today by team physician Ronald Glousman. Left wing Garry Valk, still not fully recovered from a concussion suffered Dec. 5, and defenseman Myles O’Connor, whose recovery from a groin injury has been slow, left the team from Chicago. Right wing Jim Thomson returned earlier to have a shoulder injury examined.