Karpov Gets Up to Speed to Beat Jets : Hockey: Hebert stops 39 shots as Winnipeg falls, 3-2. It’s the Ducks’ third victory in five games.

Incredible as it seems that a rookie could be overdue before he had played five games in the NHL, Valeri Karpov was.

Everybody knew it, most of all him.

Karpov, one of the best of the Mighty Ducks’ crop of rookies, had three goals and two assists in exhibition games back in September, trailing only fellow rookie Paul Kariya. But when the real season started, there might as well have been plexiglass in front of the goal. Known as a finisher, he simply couldn’t.

Not until Friday night, when Kariya set him up for his first NHL goal in the first period. Karpov returned the favor in the second period of the Ducks’ 3-2 victory over Winnipeg in front of 17,174 at The Pond of Anaheim.

The victory was the Ducks’ third in five games this season--it took them 13 to win as many last season--and it kept their record against Winnipeg perfect (6-0).

The rookies are getting all the attention, but the Ducks wouldn’t have won without goalie Guy Hebert, who made 39 saves--one shy of his career record--and had to fend off a two-man advantage for the final 1:15 after Bobby Dollas took a penalty for slashing. The Jets added to the pressure by pulling goalie Nikolai Khabibulin for an extra attacker.

“Guy was like a brick wall,” Coach Ron Wilson said. “They weren’t going to get it past him.”

The Jets’ Teemu Selanne made the Ducks sweat out the rest of the final period after he cut the lead to one at 14:38 when he beat Hebert with a low shot off a deflection.

Kariya and Karpov, who had been centered by Russian veteran Anatoli Semenov, were teamed with Swedish center Patrik Carnback for the first time Friday after Wilson, disappointed with Semenov’s play, scratched him from the lineup.

Karpov’s troubles had only to do with his nervousness, though, not with Semenov. Game after game, Kariya flung passes to him right in front of the net, but Karpov couldn’t score.

The other rookies had all celebrated their first NHL point, but Karpov was still waiting--and more and more visibly, he was pressing. His first goal finally came Friday in the first period of the fifth game of the season, when Carnback sent the puck to Kariya in the right circle and Kariya fired it to Karpov near the left post. Karpov tried once, was stopped yet again, but persisted and stuffed the puck past Khabibulin for a 1-0 lead at 4:06.

“A couple of games before, I no score goal,” Karpov said in his halting English, beaming the whole time. “But tonight I very happy. I got it.”

Said Kariya, who scored his third goal of the season and has five points in as many games, “It’s great for Val. I think you’ll see him flourish from now on. I was really happy for him tonight.”

Karpov very nearly got his second a few minutes later, but Khabibulin snagged Karpov’s shot with his glove, barely hanging on.

Kariya, Karpov and Carnback teamed up again just before the end of the second period for a 3-1 lead. This time, Carnback got the puck behind the net and passed it to Karpov, just above the goal line below the right circle. This time, it was Kariya who was in front of the net and Karpov slid the puck across to Kariya, who put it in the net with 27 seconds left in the period.

Both goalies were sharp, and even though the Ducks managed only 17 shots in the game, many of the chances were from close range, and Khabibulin was tested.

It was a contest that Hebert won, sliding to cut off Teemu Selanne’s angle on a breakaway in the first period and withstanding a half-dozen shot barrage during a power play in the second. Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhamnov tried repeatedly from close range, but Hebert foiled them again and again.

“They’ve got some offensive talent that’s among the best in the league with Selanne and Tkachuk,” Hebert said. “But we don’t need to have 40 shots as long as we get a couple or three goals.”

Hebert didn’t face a single shot during the 3 1/2 month lockout, not even putting on his equipment once. But it didn’t show. Wilson calls him a “slump-proof” goalie, said Brian Hayward, the goaltending coach, because his textbook style makes him a consistent player, unlike a risk-taker.

Although they fell behind, 1-0, the Jets tied the score at 12:32 of the first on Tkachuk’s power play goal after Dollas was sent off for tripping. Nelson Emerson’s hard shot went well wide, but it caromed off the boards back to Tkachuk and he put the puck just inside the left post for his fourth goal of the season.

The Ducks pulled back ahead in the second period when John Lilley--yet another rookie--found the puck loose in the slot and knocked it through a forest of legs and past Khabibulin at 15:45.

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Duck Notes

The Jets, led by captain Keith Tkachuk, have sent a get-well card to Duck defenseman Don McSween, who is out for the season after being severely cut on the right wrist during the Ducks’ 4-3 victory Saturday at Winnipeg. It was Tkachuk who inadvertently cut McSween with his skate blade.