Ducks Get Point Across to Detroit

That was a who-says-we-can’t effort by the Mighty Ducks on Friday night, who tied the NHL’s best team, 2-2, announcing that if they make the Stanley Cup playoffs, nobody should figure it will be an automatic sweep by the Detroit Red Wings.

The Ducks have never beaten Detroit, going 0-9-3 over three seasons. This season alone, Detroit had outscored the Ducks, 16-4.

But the Ducks are a team bent on reaching the postseason, and the tie against Detroit pulled them to within three points of Winnipeg for the final Western Conference playoff spot. Each team has five games left, including a matchup April 14 at the Pond in the final regular-season game.

“It’s a huge point,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “It’s a point nobody expected us to get.”

The Ducks also have their eyes on seventh-place Vancouver. The Canucks are five points ahead but have only three games left--tonight against the Kings, Monday at the Pond, and Saturday against Calgary in Vancouver.

For a long time, it looked as if the Ducks might beat Detroit. They had a 2-1 lead with 3 1/2 minutes left Friday in front of 17,174 at the Pond, but the Red Wings went on a power play after defenseman Darren Van Impe was whistled for elbowing, a call that didn’t please Wilson.

Detroit made good on the opportunity with 3:08 left when Steve Yzerman found Sergei Fedorov open with a pass through the slot, and Fedorov one-timed the puck past Guy Hebert.

The Ducks started overtime with a flurry and had the better chances, but Detroit held them off.

The Red Wings were thought to be counting down the victories to Montreal’s NHL record of 60 wins set in 1976-77. But they’re at 58 and holding after going 0-1-2 on a California swing, going three games without a victory for only the second time this season.

The Red Wings scored first, taking the lead 5:47 into the game when Darren McCarty put a rebound past Hebert after Hebert made a save on Slava Kozlov even though the shot deflected off a Duck’s skate.

The game stayed tight, with the Ducks’ Teemu Selanne seemingly snakebit, missing the net on a breakaway and stopped at close range two other times.

Detroit goalie Chris Osgood made one of his best saves of the night when he dove to his right to stop Joe Sacco with his arm, but Sacco was hooked by McCarty on the play, giving the Ducks a second-period power play.

Paul Kariya found Roman Oksiuta open near the front of the net once, but Oksiuta wasn’t ready. Moments later, Kariya slid down the slot again and Oksiuta was ready and waiting, taking Kariya’s pass and beating Osgood to tie the score, 1-1, at 16:57 of the second period.

Kariya’s competitiveness was on display a couple minutes later after a scrap broke out between Detroit’s Dino Ciccarelli and Duck defenseman Jason Marshall. The Red Wings’ Keith Primeau joined in late--drawing a game-misconduct penalty for doing so--but Kariya, who is 5 feet 9, was in the scrum trying to hold off Primeau, who is 6-4.

The Ducks got a power play opportunity out of that too, with Primeau also drawing a roughing penalty and the other penalties evening out. With 42 seconds left in the period, Bobby Dollas sent a quick pass over to Kariya as Kariya found open ice in the middle again, and Kariya beat Osgood for his 45th goal of the year and a 2-1 Duck lead.

Osgood made quite a few spectacular saves, including a third-period stop on J.F. Jomphe on which he watched the puck run up his body and into the air, then turned and gloved it behind him before it could fall into the net.

Later, with the Red Wings still trying to tie and Selanne and Kariya bearing down on him on a two-on-one opportunity, Osgood knocked away Kariya’s shot.

If the Ducks finish eighth and make the playoffs, they’ll see the Red Wings again in a week and a half.

“If somebody said you’ll definitely play Detroit in the first round, it would mean you made the playoffs,” Wilson said. “You shouldn’t worry, you should be happy you’d be in the first round, playing somebody. If they’re the best team and go on to win the Stanley Cup and you played them in the first round, it gives you an idea what you have to do to improve your franchise.”

Duck Notes

Right wing Igor Nikulin, the team’s fifth-round pick in the 1995 draft, has signed a one-year contract. Nikulin, 23, will practice with the Ducks the rest of the season before reporting to training camp next fall.