Ducks Tie Avalanche, Set Club Record

The Mighty Ducks are making their point, and pretty convincingly.

They earned a difficult point on the road from the Colorado Avalanche Sunday with a 2-2 tie against the defending Stanley Cup champions, and they staked a claim to being one of the NHL’s best teams at the moment.

The Ducks set a franchise record by extending their streak to eight games without a loss, going 5-0-3. They haven’t been beaten since a Feb. 20 loss to the Kings.

And since they put their disastrous 1-9-2 October behind them, they have a better record than every team in the Western Conference except Colorado, Dallas and Detroit. (They’re sixth in the conference overall.)

“We’re just playing good hockey,” said center Steve Rucchin. “It’s taken us a while to do it. We all knew we were capable of it. We believe we’re one of the better teams in the league, and we’re proving it the last few weeks.”

Goalie Guy Hebert, who has been the backbone of the Ducks’ streak, made 40 saves and stopped the first 32 shots he faced even though he had to fend off five power plays in the first two periods.

“Guy Hebert in our net was unbelievable again,” said Teemu Selanne, who pulled out the tie with 3:18 left in regulation when he scored his 42nd goal of the season, this one with the Ducks on a five-on-three power play.

Eight seconds into the game, the Ducks had a 1-0 lead after Paul Kariya rifled a shot past Patrick Roy from the left wing after Rucchin controlled the opening faceoff. Kariya’s goal, his 34th, was the quickest goal in Duck history, and the fastest ever given up by the Avalanche.

“It was a great shot. He’s a great player,” Roy said. “It hit the post and bounced off the back of my skates.”

But Colorado, the highest-scoring team in the NHL, has been shut out only once all season, and Peter Forsberg finally broke through with a power-play goal off a twice-deflected shot 1:39 into the third period. Adam Deadmarsh scored for a 2-1 lead at 3:49.

“There never seems to be an end to what comes at you,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said. “Forsberg, Joe Sakic, Mike Ricci, Adam Deadmarsh. It’s like it never stops.

“We hung in there. We bent and nearly broke, but we didn’t. We persevered. We took at bad penalty at the start of the third period, and you can only hold their power play off for so long.”

Instead of bowing to the will of the team with the best record in the NHL, the Ducks came back.

“It never has been easy against them,” said Avalanche captain Sakic, whose team has been tied by the Ducks three times this season. “They seem to play good, patient defense against us. . . . Every once in a while, you run into a hot goaltender, and that happened tonight.”

Kariya had nearly scored again on a breakaway in the first minute of the final period, but Roy went down in a butterfly to block his shot.

Then, with the Ducks trailing, 2-1, Roy got caught out of position after he wandered far out of the net, and the Ducks’ Kevin Todd had a golden opportunity, only to see defenseman Aaron Miller foil his chance at the corner of the net.

“It was just reaction,” Miller said. “I saw the puck coming and put my stick on the post. He fired it right on my blade.”

Finally, the Ducks got the chance they needed when Colorado’s Adam Foote was sent to the box for punching Rucchin with the Ducks already on a power play. That gave them a two-man advantage for 1:09, and Selanne made good on it when Dmitri Mironov’s shot caromed out to him and he had plenty of time to put the puck past a scrambling Roy.

“We got a good shot and I got the rebound. It was a little lucky, but I’ll take it,” Selanne said.

The Ducks have been dismal on the road ,and are still only 9-18-6. But they are unbeaten in their last three, including a tie against Detroit, another powerhouse.

“Tying in Detroit the other night did a lot for our confidence on the road. . . . Everybody’s playing with confidence,” Hebert said. “Winning breeds winning and losing breeds losing. You get in a rut. This is the good side of a rut to be in.”