One Stick Paddles the Ducks

This time, Patrick Roy was too good for the Mighty Ducks--and a little too smart for them too.

The Ducks had beaten Roy twice this season, once when he was a Montreal Canadien and again after he was traded to the Colorado Avalanche. But he held off the Ducks in a hard-fought 3-2 game Monday at McNichols Arena by making 25 saves--not including a very big stick save with 1:18 left in the game.

Duck Coach Ron Wilson tried the old illegal goalie-stick challenge again, hoping to get a six-on-four attack after pulling his own goalie, Mikhail Shtalenkov. This time it failed, and the Ducks played five-on-five, with David Sacco serving the bench minor assessed for a false challenge.

Wilson was looking for an edge to help the Ducks eke out a tie and steal a point from the Avalanche so they could avoid falling five points out of the final Western Conference playoff spot. Winnipeg has a grip on eighth place, but five teams are fighting for it.

Wilson has won the stick gambit before--most recently against Edmonton’s Joaquin Gage in January--but this time he was wrong. Referee Kerry Fraser measured the width of Roy’s stick blade and found it to be right at the 3 1/2-inch limit.

“They come illegal, but I shave them,” said Roy, who of course remembers Marty McSorley’s illegal stick in the 1993 Stanley Cup finals between Montreal and the Kings. “Before every game, I make sure they’re legal. There are so many sticks I give away, I guess the Ducks had one of mine that was illegal.”

Wilson contends just about every goalie in the league is wearing some piece of illegal equipment.

“His stick was legal--by chance,” Wilson said. “But the difference tonight was Patrick Roy. He made some very big saves.”

Roy stopped four shots by Teemu Selanne, who nevertheless scored a goal, his 32nd of the season and eighth in eight games since being traded to the Ducks.

With Selanne in the lineup, the Ducks have won four of eight games--and three of the four losses have been by one goal.

“We’ve played really well the last eight or 10 games,” Wilson said. “We were right there battling every single step of the way. It’s a positive for us to play one of the best teams in the league that way. We’ve got 20 games to go. We have to have a good homestand and play .500 on the road.”

Selanne’s goal at 13:01 of the third pulled the Ducks back to 3-2 after the Avalanche scored three times in a row, getting power-play goals from Valeri Kamensky and Claude Lemieux and an even-strength goal by ex-King Warren Rychel. Defenseman Alexei Gusarov had assists on all three goals.

“It’s tough to play a team like that when you’re short-handed so much,” Wilson said. “They have too much firepower.”

Joe Sacco scored on a breakaway in the first, breaking a 10-game goal drought. But the Ducks fell behind, and Roy stopped Selanne on a partial breakaway, then foiled Paul Kariya on a short-handed chance from close range in the third.

“He was good, but we hit him a lot too,” Kariya said. “That’s part of being good, though. He’s always in the right spot.”

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Duck Notes

Right wing Todd Ewen served an automatic one-game NHL suspension after accumulating his third game misconduct of the season. Players are fined $200 for each game misconduct and the team is fined $1,000 for each suspension. . . . Rookie Jim Campbell and Colorado’s Rene Corbet received game misconducts in the first for fighting while another fight was being broken up. . . . Center David Sacco returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch two games in a row. He replaced Valeri Karpov.