Ducks Happy to Tie Toronto on Corkum’s ‘Lucky’ Goal : Hockey: Center sends game into overtime when he redirects Kariya’s shot with 35 seconds left in regulation.

They matched body slams, slick stick-handling, luck and pluck for so long it was impossible to pick a winner. In the end, the Mighty Ducks and Toronto Maple Leafs couldn’t break free of each other and went home tired and tied, 3-3, Friday night at The Pond.

A sellout crowd of 17,174 watched Toronto lose a 3-2 lead in the final seconds of regulation when Duck forward Bob Corkum scored to send the game into overtime.

The Ducks treated the tie as if it were a victory, but the Maple Leafs did not.

“Tonight and Calgary (a 5-0 victory on Wednesday) were probably the best we’ve played,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “We’ve had back-to-back solid efforts. That’s seven straight excellent periods for us. We’ve just got to build on it.”

Pat Burns went into the game needing one victory to record his 100th as Maple Leaf coach. Five others have reached the milestone in team history, topped by Dick Irvin with 216. But Burns will have to wait until at least tonight’s game against the Kings at the Forum.

“We played good enough to get a point, but certainly not good enough to get a win,” he groused.

Dave Andreychuk’s bank shot off a tangle of bodies in front of the net gave the Maple Leafs a 3-2 lead with less than 7 minutes left in regulation. Standing behind the goal line at the left of the net, he simply sent the puck toward the slot. It hit someone and bounced past a stunned Guy Hebert. At the time, it seemed just the edge Toronto would need for its second consecutive victory on this trip.

Hebert, who stopped 28 of 31 shots, made his usual assortment of quality saves, but was defenseless against Andreychuk’s trick shot.

But Toronto couldn’t make the lead stick.

The Ducks pulled Hebert for an extra skater with 1:15 left in regulation and buzzed the Toronto net until Corkum redirected Paul Kariya’s slap shot from the right circle into the net with 35 seconds left.

“I was trying to screen the goalie,” Corkum said. “I was fortunate enough to have the puck hit my stick. As soon as I saw it in the net, I knew it was mine.

“It was a lucky goal, but I’ll take it.”

Corkum’s goal proved to be the last of three quirky goals in the third period. The one that gave the Maple Leafs a brief, 2-1, lead came from the unlikeliest source on the ice, excepting goaltender Damian Rhodes, of course. Former King Warren Rychel scored on a breakaway at the 2:53 mark, his first goal as a Maple Leaf and only the 17th of a career highlighted by 714 penalty minutes.

The Ducks then countered when Bobby Dollas swatted a lose puck into the net as he was falling to the ice with Rich Sutter draped on his back at 5:42.

In the first period, Toronto’s Mats Sundin slid a rebound past Hebert at the 13:50 mark for his team-leading 14th goal, giving the Maple Leafs a 1-0 lead. Sixty-three seconds later, Duck forward Stephan Lebeau picked up a pass from Kariya, slipped through the defense and beat Rhodes between the pads for the equalizer.

“Earlier in the year, when we would get a breakaway scored against us, we couldn’t rebound,” Corkum said. “Tonight, we rebounded twice in the third period.”

Said Wilson: “You’re confident standing behind the bench (now). You’re not standing with your fingers crossed behind your back.”