Salei Makes Another Request to Leave

Defenseman Ruslan Salei has asked General Manager Jack Ferreira for permission to miss Wednesday’s game against the New York Rangers so he can join Belarus for its opening game Saturday against Germany in the “B” pool of the Olympic tournament.

Ferreira already has turned down an earlier request.

“If I go on Sunday, I miss two important games,” Salei said. “Only the game against Japan is left. If they lose the first two, maybe I’ll go for one game and a vacation. Hopefully, they win. Or the Ducks let me go early.”

Salei’s physical play in the Ducks’ 4-3 overtime victory Sunday against the Chicago Blackhawks probably will work against him leaving early. Coach Pierre Page has been desperate for more physical play from the Ducks.

Most eye-catching was Salei’s solid decision over Chicago’s Sergei Krivokrasov during a third-period fight. Salei said Monday he did not intentionally head-butt Krivokrasov, although TV replays seemed to indicate otherwise.

“I’m not usually a fighter,” Salei said. “Sometimes it happens if a guy ticks you off. I didn’t do a head-butt on purpose. I sort of slipped and my head hit his head. It happened like an accident.”

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Page offers this explanation for all the stick work this season against skilled players:

“Teams are going after players like they’re quarterbacks in the NFL because the standings are so close. There’s so much hacking and whacking. If a skilled guy goes to the net, they’re hacking him on the hands as hard as they can and that’s not OK. It’s got to come to an end.

“It’s been happening a lot lately and I know why: It’s because the standings are so close.”

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Page is an advocate of a two-referee system in order to better police the game and protect star players. “Two refs would see more,” he said. “Players are pretty smart. A lot of stuff happens away from the puck.”

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Page found all sorts of faults in the Ducks’ performance against Chicago, but he was pleased by their effort.

“We didn’t do everything right, but it showed that emotion pays off,” he said. “We stressed emotion. We, the whole coaching staff, talked to the players about the need for emotion.”

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The Ducks devoted Monday’s practice to improving their power play, the league’s second-worst with only an 11.2% success rate. Page said he broke the team into two groups to drill the players more effectively.