J.J. Gets Job Done for Ducks

The Phoenix Coyotes wracked their brains looking for ways to stop Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne from “running wild.”

Instead of a bushel of two-on-one rushes and nearly a handful of goals, Kariya and Selanne were held to one assist each--and a celebratory empty-net goal by Selanne with seven seconds left in the Mighty Ducks’ 4-2 victory in Game 2 of the best-of-seven Western Conference quarterfinal series.

Duck Coach Ron Wilson kept insisting someone else would step up, and someone did: defenseman J.J. Daigneault, who scored two goals and assisted another.

The Ducks took a 2-0 series lead and go to Phoenix for games Sunday and Tuesday, and the Coyotes will have to win at least one to force a fifth game in Anaheim.

Daigneault isn’t an unlikely hero considering that he won a Stanley Cup with Montreal in 1993, playing a key role in defeating the Kings. But he’s not exactly entrenched as a Duck, after serving a 10-game NHL suspension for a stick incident with a referee shortly after arriving in a late-season trade.

The trade paid its biggest dividends yet in the third period, with the score tied, 2-2, after Phoenix’s Keith Tkachuk had scored the tying goal 3:55 into the period.

With the Ducks fighting to avoid their first overtime playoff game, a shot by Kariya went wide. Daigneault swept in on the puck, carried it behind the net, curled slightly and whipped it underneath Nikolai Khabibulin’s pads for a 3-2 lead and pandemonium at the Pond at 13:26 of the third.

Phoenix Coach Don Hay was intent on slowing the Kariya-Selanne line he says, “dominates with speed.”

For Game 2, Hay put a checking line against the Ducks’ big line, but he made one change, adding high-scoring, hard-hitting winger Jeremy Roenick to a line centered by former Duck Bob Corkum with Darrin Shannon on the wing.

The Coyotes also split up the defense pair of Teppo Numminen and Oleg Tverdovsky, putting defense-minded Gerald Diduck--who has played 770 NHL games--with Numminen, their best defenseman.

Numminen was asked to concentrate on defense this season and to help Tverdovsky along.

Because of that, Numminen had only two goals this season, but he got a big goal--and the early lead--9:23 into the game when he cut to the net and took a pass from Roenick, shooting off his right foot and getting the puck past Guy Hebert. The Coyotes’ had a man advantage after Ted Drury was called for charging Diduck.

With both teams playing a more physical game, power play opportunities weren’t rare, and the Ducks scored on their second of the game with Phoenix defenseman Jim Johnson in the box after he cross-checked Warren Rychel when Rychel had a chance to score in front of the net.

The Coyotes’ Darrin Shannon had a chance to clear the puck but sent it straight to Daigneault, who passed it over to defenseman Dmitri Mironov, who skated in a bit and beat goalie Nikolai Khabibulin on the short side with a shot from near the top of the right circle.

Mironov’s goal tied the score, 1-1, at 10:46 of the first.

Besides speed, the series has three of the NHL’s top 10 goal-scorers in Tkachuk (52), Selanne (51) and Kariya (44). But instead of being high-scoring, it’s threatening to become the series of the disallowed goal.

An apparent Ducks’ goal in the second was disallowed because Rychel was called for slashing Khabibulin as both went for a loose puck. With Khabibulin out of the net, the Ducks’ Ken Baumgartner pushed the puck across the goal line into the empty net.

Phoenix--which had a goal disallowed in Game 1 because of a quick whistle--lost another in the second period Friday, this one because Mike Gartner’s left skate was in the crease when Cliff Ronning deflected Tverdovsky’s point shot into the net.

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