Selanne Uses His Head to Help Ducks Salvage Tie

Over the defenseman. Through the tangle of bodies in front of the goaltender. Off the teammate’s visor.

Nothing but net.

Teemu Selanne’s seventh goal in five games was pure luck, no question. But his third-period header at the left goalpost after defenseman Ruslan Salei airmailed him the puck from the right point enabled the Mighty Ducks to tie the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-2, Tuesday.

“I don’t think he tried to deflect it with his head on purpose. It’s not soccer,” Coach Pierre Page said, laughing about Selanne’s good fortune.

Said Selanne, who kept the Ducks unbeaten at 1-0-2 in the first three games of their five-game East Coast trip:

“I didn’t know it was the puck that hit me. I thought it was a stick that hit me. All of a sudden, the puck was in the net. I thought, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’ ”

Players, officials and the sellout crowd of 15,707 wondered the same thing. Referee Mark Faucette asked the video replay goal judge to take a look at how the puck got behind Toronto goalie Felix Potvin at the 8:04 mark of the third period.

What the replay judge saw was Salei fire a rising slap shot over a diving Maple Leaf defenseman and past a number of players that included Selanne. Selanne flinched as the puck neared his face, drawing up his right arm to protect himself.

Because he was a moment too slow, the puck struck his protective visor instead of his arm and ricocheted into the net. Potvin never had a chance.

“I just shot the puck because there were many guys in front of the net,” Salei said. “Just keep it simple. Maybe it will touch somebody and go in, just like it did.”

After a moment’s review upstairs in the press box, replay judge Al Dawe ruled it a goal.

“Sometimes it’s just a lot of luck,” said Selanne, who extended his goal-scoring streak to a team-record-tying five games. “Sometimes you have five breakaways and don’t score. It hit my visor and went in the net. I had nothing to do with it.”

Earlier this month, Selanne couldn’t seem to shoot into an empty net. He scored in the second game of the season, but then went without a goal in the next five.

He broke the slump in the Ducks’ emotional 4-3 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes on Oct. 21 and has been the NHL’s hottest player since.

Of course, Tuesday’s feat couldn’t possibly be placed in the same category as the spectacular end-to-end rush that produced the tying goal and completed his hat trick in Sunday’s 3-3 tie against the New York Rangers.

But it bailed the Ducks out of a tough spot against the rebuilding Maple Leafs and continued their road momentum.

Including the split of two games against the Vancouver Canucks in Tokyo to start the season, the Ducks are 3-1-2 away from the Pond. Next on the trip: a rematch Thursday against the Boston Bruins, who defeated the Ducks, 3-0, Oct. 13 at Anaheim.

“We’ve played very well, very patiently the past few games,” defenseman J.J. Daigneault said. “We’ve had great third periods.”

Now, if the Ducks could only do something about their lackluster second periods.

As in Saturday’s victory over the New York Islanders and Sunday’s tie against the Rangers, the Ducks were badly outplayed in the second period Tuesday.

Toronto’s Sergei Berezin scored a power-play goal to put the Maple Leafs ahead, 1-0, at the 7:16 mark of the second period. Espen Knutsen tied the score with a terrific backhander over Potvin’s left shoulder at 19:03.

Mats Sundin then put one of his game-high nine shots on goal past goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov for a 2-1 Toronto lead 5:21 into the third period. Less than three minutes later, Salei and Selanne hooked up for the tying goal.

However, any post-game giddiness was tempered by the news that defenseman Bobby Dollas was cut by a skate on the left forearm and will return to Anaheim today to be examined further by team doctors.

Dollas returned to the lineup Sunday after sitting out three games because of a broken right big toe.