Shtalenkov Saves Day for the Ducks

Reduce a hockey game to a race between Teemu Selanne and just about anybody, and the Mighty Ducks will probably win.

Backup goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov fended off the Chicago Blackhawks to get his first NHL shutout Wednesday night, and the Ducks got their first victory of the season, a 2-0 win that spoiled the Blackhawks’ home opener in front of 17,795 at the United Center.

The Ducks’ inexperienced defense, so mistake-prone in their first two games, didn’t play error-free hockey, but none of their giveaways cost them.

Shtalenkov made 26 saves and Selanne pulled out the victory with a short-handed breakaway goal in the second period when he beat Blackhawk defenseman Gary Suter to a loose puck after Jari Kurri flipped it out of the Ducks’ zone.

“Gary can skate too, and so can Chris Chelios, but neither one was going to catch Teemu racing for an open puck,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said.

Selanne out-sprinted Suter, picking up the puck just over the Chicago blue line, then skated in on goalie Ed Belfour and beat him with a little backhand move at 6:36 of the second.

“Both were skating 100 miles an hour to catch me. I didn’t have much time,” said Selanne, who scored his second goal in three games and also has three assists. “I didn’t think when I scored that could be the goal to win it.”

But the score remained 1-0 until 53 seconds remained, when Alex Hicks added an empty-net goal.

It was a dramatic turnabout for the Ducks, who would have had their longest winless streak to start a season if they hadn’t won. Instead, they’re 1-1-1 with games at Colorado tonight and Phoenix on Saturday left on an arduous five-game trip.

“We’re .500 and these last two were real tough games,” Wilson said. “We’ll get at least three points out of this road trip. Maybe five or six. This is the way we have to play without Paul Kariya.”

Because Kariya, a 50-goal scorer, is out because of a hard-to-gauge abdominal injury, the Ducks are trying to play defensive hockey--without much success before Wednesday.

“In Montreal, we let them score six goals [in a 6-6 tie],” Selanne said. “That’s not the style we should play, especially without Paul Kariya in the lineup.”

When he will return is frustrating guesswork for the Ducks.

“It could be tomorrow, it could be a month, it could be two months, I don’t know,” Wilson said. “Neither do the doctors and neither does Paul. It’s a quirky thing.”

With the Ducks playing their first back-to-back games of the season, Wilson sent Shtalenkov out to face the Blackhawks. Guy Hebert will face Colorado tonight, but the prospect of another episode in the “Who’s No. 1?” goalie saga might loom again. Hebert was brilliant down the stretch last season and sharp during the exhibition season, but surprisingly ordinary the first two games.

Shtalenkov wasn’t brilliant, but he was more than good enough. He got some help when Denis Savard hit the post on a breakaway early in the game and later when teammate Ted Drury cleared a puck that got past him and rested just shy of the goal line. Tony Amonte fanned on a couple of close-in attempts, and one goal was enough.

“I think I’m pretty lucky tonight,” Shtalenkov said. “The score was 1-0, there was no way to relax.

“I didn’t know how much time was left when Hicksie scored into the open net. I was kind of surprised.”

Shtalenkov, 30, has a 15-27-5 record in four seasons with the Ducks but hadn’t had a shutout since he played for Russia in the 1992 Olympics.

“Against France,” he said, laughing. “It’s just a great feeling. I don’t know about shutouts. I want to win as much as possible. That’s all the game’s about.”