MIGHTY DUCK NOTES / ROBYN NORWOOD : Tugnutt Will Test His New Mask Tonight

Ron Tugnutt kissed his wife and baby a week and a half ago and left town with the Mighty Ducks.

He came home a Montreal Canadien, and tonight, he’ll start in goal for the Canadiens, just 10 days after he was traded for Stephan Lebeau.

The custom-made Mighty Duck goalie mask he waited five months for is just another souvenir now, and Tugnutt already has a new mask he’ll wear tonight.

He’s looking at the game--his first start for the Canadiens--as “something I’m going to enjoy.” And whatever happens, he’ll laugh with his buddies on the Ducks after the game.

Between the teams’ practices Tuesday, his former teammates gathered around the Montreal bench to catch up, but tonight they’ll be out to beat him.

“When I skate by or after the whistle, I’m going to be saying things to him, see if I can get him off his game,” Duck winger Terry Yake said. “I don’t know if it will work though, because he’ll know I’m joking.”

The day of the trade, Tugnutt might have been the first player in NHL history to be disappointed to go from an expansion team to the Canadiens, winner of 24 Stanley Cups. For him, it meant becoming a full-time backup again, this time behind Patrick Roy, perhaps the best goalie in the world. It also meant he wasn’t sure when he would see his family.

“I feel a lot better now than I did before,” Tugnutt said. “Things have settled in, and I got a chance to come back and see my wife and baby.”

Jacob, Ron and Lisa’s first child, was born Jan. 23, and the road trip was the first time Ron and been away from more than a day or two. It turned out to be longer than expected.

“It was a week and a half, but it seemed longer,” Tugnutt said. “He gained some weight, he got taller. It seemed like he changed a lot.”

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With 20 games left in their season, the Mighty Ducks are doing what once seemed unthinkable: They’re preparing to send out ticket order forms for the playoffs.

“We have the tickets designed and the forms designed,” said club President Tony Tavares, adding that prices will be announced shortly.

They would have done it even sooner, but Tavares said the first-year team would have been “at the risk of being called presumptuous or unrealistic.”

But with seven weeks left in the regular season, he’s calling it pragmatic. The Ducks are three points behind San Jose and two ahead of the Kings in the battle for the final Western Conference playoff spot.

“If we were an established team, our package would have been out long before now,” Tavares said, noting that the Kings’ is already out. He also pointed out that the first payments won’t be due until late March--meaning fans will have a better idea if the Ducks really might make it.

“Frankly, all this is a bonus to us,” he said. “We didn’t anticipate being here. Certainly the playoffs were beyond our dreams.”