Ducks Battle Snow to Earn Tie With Flyers

Thirty inches of snow that is slowly being plowed into mammoth drifts couldn’t keep the Mighty Ducks from getting to their game against the Philadelphia Flyers Tuesday night.

Another 75 inches of Snow--in the form of 6-3 Flyer goalie Garth Snow--couldn’t shut them down either, and the Ducks overcame a two-day trip from Edmonton with a gutty 2-2 tie against the Flyers, one of the NHL’s best and most physical teams.

“It didn’t really bother us. The snow, the conditions, were how they were,” said center Steve Rucchin, who returned to the lineup after missing 18 games because of a sprained knee. “We were eager to get here and play the game.

“It was almost good in a way. It takes your mind off the game. If we’d been here in Philly sitting in the hotel, we might have thought about the game too much.”

“Maybe it helped us,” said Paul Kariya, who on the day he was named to his first NHL All-Star team scored his 24th goal--thereby breaking the Ducks’ season record with 39 games to play. “It made us focus a little more, be on edge.”

The game was officially a Spectrum sellout at 17,380, but to many people’s surprise, there were more than 15,000 actually on hand--many of them probably victims of cabin fever after spending three days stuck at home.

It was a physical game, beginning only four seconds in with a fight between the Ducks’ Todd Ewen and the Flyers’ Shawn Antoski after Coach Ron Wilson sent Ewen out for the opening faceoff. That cost him a bench minor since Ewen wasn’t on the lineup card as a starter. Wilson said it was “my mistake. I just got excited when I saw some of the guys they had out there to start. I would have felt bad if they’d scored [on the resulting power play.]”

Instead, it helped set a tone, especially with rugged forward Rucchin back in the lineup. The Ducks had a 2-0 lead only 6 1/2 minutes later, scoring when Steven King deflected a shot by defenseman David Karpa, then notching a rare power-play goal when Rucchin fed Kariya with a pretty cross-ice pass.

Eric Desjardins and John LeClair scored on Philadelphia power plays in the second to tie the score, 2-2, but goaltender Guy Hebert and a shot-blocking defense held off a Flyer attack that got more physical and furious as the game went on.

Hebert made 31 saves--three in overtime--and Karpa blocked a couple of shots as time ticked away. Then, with an extra Flyer attacker on the ice with 1.9 seconds left, Mike Sillinger cleanly won a faceoff from Rod Brind’Amour in the Ducks’ end, sending the puck clear out of the zone.

Wilson and the Ducks have been criticized even by their own management for grabbing at every excuse available, and they had a big one dropped in their laps by the East Coast blizzard. But they didn’t take it, even though they were forced to spend Monday night in Pittsburgh because of airport closures and didn’t reach their Philadelphia hotel until about noon Tuesday.

“A lot of guys are from Canada. We see snow all the time. It’s nothing new to us,” Rucchin said. “We’ve all been stuck in snowstorms. We’re used to not getting where you want to go.

“It feels like a hockey game to us. It makes you realize you’re here to play the Philadelphia Flyers. There’s no question, it’s how hockey was meant to be played. To go to the rink, you have to shovel out and scrape the snow off your car.”

The tie was “a huge point for us” Wilson said. “Obviously, when you’re playing the Flyers you’re going to have fear, especially with their physical presence. But I had a good feeling coming in.

“Maybe we shouldn’t practice tomorrow. Or maybe I should make it difficult to get to Boston. Maybe we should take a bus.”

Duck Notes

The record for goals in a season that Kariya broke was set by Bob Corkum with 23 in 1993-94 . . . With Bob Gainey leaving the bench to concentrate on general manager duties in Dallas, only two NHL coaches have been with their current teams longer than Wilson, who’s only in his third season. Toronto’s Pat Burns and Tampa Bay’s Terry Crisp share the NHL “longevity” mark at four seasons. “Personally, I think it shows our sport has a lack of respect for coaches,” Wilson said. “It’s embarrassing.”

* KARIYA AN ALL-STAR: The Ducks’ Paul Kariya is named as a reserve to the Jan. 20 NHL All-Star team. C7