At Home on the Road Again, Ducks Rally to Tie Red Wings, 4-4

Another night, another unlikely result for the Mighty Ducks, who continued to defy reason Wednesday night.

Just when you think you have them pegged, the Ducks fool you. They have through the season’s first 49 games.

This time, they tied the Detroit Red Wings, 4-4, before 19,875 at Joe Louis Arena.

The Ducks erased a 4-2 deficit in the second period, held off the Red Wings in the third and could have won in overtime in their final game before the All-Star break.

If Detroit’s Terry Carkner hadn’t pulled down Terry Yake, who was streaking toward the net in the game’s final minute, who knows what might have happened?

The Ducks screamed for a penalty shot, and some said they would have settled for a penalty on Carkner and a power play. But they got neither from referee Blaine Angus.

“It should have been a penalty shot as far as I’m concerned,” Yake said. “I didn’t even want the power play. The only thing I wanted was the goal.”

Reminded that penalties are rarely called in overtime, Yake merely shrugged.

“If that’s the case, we might as well throw a rope around everybody and play lasso the last five minutes of the game,” he said.

That play probably won’t linger in the minds of the Ducks, though. There are so many other, more pleasant thoughts to occupy them during the All-Star break.

For openers, the Ducks (18-27-4) are tied with the Kings and San Jose Sharks for third place in the Pacific Division and the eighth--and final--playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Next, their road record is the best in the Pacific at 12-12-2, and they are unbeaten in their last five away from Anaheim Arena.

Finally, there is the subject of confidence, which seems to swell when the Ducks play on the road against tough opponents, such as Detroit (26-14-5).

“We’ve gone into some places where it’s really tough to win and we’ve won,” defenseman Bobby Dollas said.

Wednesday’s tie followed a 3-3 tie against against Toronto (27-14-9) Tuesday at Maple Leaf Gardens.

“It just shows you that everybody had more potential than they were able to show on other teams,” Yake said. “To go to Toronto and Detroit and have a good chance to win both. . . . I mean, two ties are not what you want, but it’s still pretty good.”

The Ducks’ rally was particularly impressive, considering past performances against Detroit. In three games, the Red Wings had terrorized the Ducks, outscoring them 18-8, and Sergei Fedorov had three goals and four assists.

He had one assist Wednesday.

Darren McCarty scored 2:33 into the second period for a 4-2 Detroit lead, and it looked like the Red Wings might win easily.

But the Ducks chucked their normal defensive-oriented style and moved the puck with crisp passes and hard drives.

Steven King scored at the 5:03 mark to bring the Ducks to within 4-3, and Bob Corkum tied it with his team-leading 16th goal of the season on a power play at 12:05.

Coach Ron Wilson was concerned the Ducks’ scoring would suffer when Anatoli Semenov, who had nine goals and 15 assists in 29 games, was sidelined by a dislocated elbow Dec. 7.

“We’ve played phenomenally without him,” Wilson said of Semenov, who might return for Monday’s game against St. Louis. “A guy like Bob Corkum has come through with flying colors, and he’s become a complete hockey player now.”