Grimson Lights Up Lightning

He’s the Mighty Ducks’ newest goal-scoring sensation. Center Travis Green, you say? Left wing Marty McInnis? Defenseman Ruslan Salei? No way. Not Wednesday.

He’s big, he’s brawny, he’s ham-handed left wing Stu Grimson, who scored two goals in the Ducks’ 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Arrowhead Pond.

Too bad an announced crowd of only 13,963, a franchise-low, witnessed Grimson’s 10th and 11th goals in his 511th NHL game. It might have sounded better if a full house bellowed, “Stuuuuuuu,” after each of his goals.

“For a guy like me, there aren’t that many times when things go that smoothly on the ice,” Grimson said. “Maybe in juniors or in the minors I had a couple of opportunities like that. The best thing about scoring two goals in a game is you want to go out there and do it again.”

At 6 feet 5 and 239 pounds, Grimson is better suited to pounding opponents into submission. Wednesday, he used a bit of finesse in front of the net and helped the Ducks extend their unbeaten streak to four (3-0-1).

The Ducks also ended the Lightning’s three-game winning streak.

None of it would have been possible without Grimson.

“He’s a team player,” Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “He does everything that’s asked of him. Most nights, it’s not an easy or a fun job to do. Tonight, he got rewarded by scoring a couple of goals.”

So what if Grimson’s goals were as ugly as the faces of some of his foes after a lopsided fight.

So what if his last goal was March 23 against the Florida Panthers as a member of the Carolina Hurricanes.

So what if Wednesday was the first two-goal game of his NHL career.

What mattered to the Ducks was that Grimson put up a roadblock in front of Tampa Bay goaltender Daren Puppa, and wouldn’t budge.

First, Grimson accidentally redirected center Antti Aalto’s shot from the slot with his right skate to give the Ducks a 3-1 lead at 11:53 of the second period.

Next, after Tampa Bay defenseman Cory Cross scored at 14:36, Grimson converted on a rebound for a 4-2 Duck lead at 15:24.

In the end, Grimson’s offensive outburst overshadowed the paltry crowd, the 42 saves by goalie Guy Hebert, Green’s ongoing scoring slump, McInnis’ first game as a Duck and Salei’s 1998-99 debut.

The previous low crowd at the Pond was 15,386 for an Oct. 10, 1993, game against the New York Islanders. Wednesday also was only the fifth crowd of fewer than 16,000 in the franchise’s six-season history.

Green has yet to score a goal after seven games. But new linemate McInnis had an assist in his first game since being traded Tuesday from Calgary to Chicago to Anaheim.

Salei also had an assist in his first game of the season after serving a five-game suspension and being scratched Sunday against the Phoenix Coyotes.

Paul Kariya, Tomas Sandstrom and Teemu Selanne also scored for the Ducks, who will no doubt find tougher competition Friday at Dallas and Saturday at St. Louis.

Cross, Mikael Renberg and Wendel Clark scored for Tampa Bay, which has made significant strides since finishing last overall in the NHL with only 17 victories last season.

It cannot accurately be reported that the Ducks dominated the Lightning in any way shape or form, but they certainly had their moments after overcoming their second consecutive sluggish start.

Like Sunday’s 2-2 tie against the Coyotes, the Ducks staggered at the opening bell. They looked slow and disorganized for the game’s first 10 minutes or so.

“We obviously got our heads off the pillows and woke up and realized we were in a hockey game,” Hartsburg said after the Ducks reached .500 at 3-3-1. “We had to shellshock our goaltender to see if he was awake. Thank God, he was.”

Against another team, on another night, the Ducks might have been down by a couple of goals. But this was the Lightning, after all, and there was at least a small margin of error for the Ducks.

When at last the Ducks recovered their smarts and speed, they built a 2-0 first-period lead on goals by Kariya and Sandstrom.