Now Here’s a Story for McSween to Tell

Time slipped by and Don McSween wondered if it would ever happen, if he’d ever score an NHL goal, if he’d ever feel the way he did Wednesday night.

So many things had to happen just right for McSween that it seemed so far-fetched. But he never stopped dreaming, never quit believing he’d have a great story to tell his son.

In the future, he can say he absolutely flew around four defenders, heck, maybe it was five, and unloaded a rocket the goaltender never saw.

In truth, it was a simple slap shot, and a deflected one at that. Winnipeg goaltender Bob Essensa couldn’t handle the shot after it hit a Jet player and the puck settled in the back of the net.

“Probably would have put a hole in the back in the net (if it weren’t deflected),” said McSween, after the Mighty Ducks’ 3-1 victory over Winnipeg.

He laughed. He knew there was no way that would have happened.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” he said.

After the unlikely set of circumstances that brought McSween to Anaheim, there’s no use quibbling over the beauty of his first NHL goal.

“It was a real stroke of good scouting for us to wake up and sign him,” Duck General Manager Jack Ferreira said.

He was kidding. The Ducks signed McSween, a former Buffalo Sabre defenseman, because three other defensemen were injured and a fourth was deemed not ready for the NHL.

Randy Ladouceur and Sean Hill went down with injuries. In San Diego, the Ducks’ minor-league affiliate, Anatoli Fedotov was hurting and Scott Chartier simply wasn’t playing well enough, according to Ferreira.

So, they brought in McSween, hoping he could shore up things in the Duck defense.

“Before the season started, I thought he was the kind of guy that if we really got into trouble could help us out,” Ferreira said.

And now, seven games and one goal into his emergency service, McSween has earned his keep.

Hill, sidelined for nine consecutive games with a shoulder injury, is expected back as soon as Friday’s game against the New York Rangers. But McSween isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s going to take a bomb to get him out of the lineup,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “He’s come through with flying colors. And it’s only by accident that he’s here.”

McSween, who played only nine NHL games with Buffalo before this season and none since 1989-90, got a second chance and hasn’t disappointed.

Scoring comes as a bonus.

The way it happened, after a face-off in Winnipeg’s zone late in the first period, wasn’t memorable.

But it came against his old college buddy, Essensa, and that made it mean so much more.

“We were roommates (at Michigan State),” McSween said. “He stood up at my wedding and I stood up at his wedding.

“We got in a little shoving match later and I asked him if he’d sign the puck after the game.

“It’s something I’ll never forget.”