Kariya and Ducks End Their Droughts

Paul Kariya didn’t dance, didn’t whoop and holler. He merely raised his stick and pumped his fist once after watching the puck sail into the net at 8:19 of the third period Friday.

That was all the celebrating Kariya would do after ending a career-high 10-game goal-scoring drought in the Mighty Ducks’ 4-1 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes before 16,308 at the Arrowhead Pond.

Rest assured, it was a huge relief for Kariya, but only one of two goals he would score as the Ducks ended a three-game losing streak.

Kariya had been piling up assists in almost every game, moving into the NHL scoring lead last week. But he hadn’t scored a goal since the Ducks’ 3-0 victory Dec. 13 against the Kings.

Friday, he scored two goals--his 15th and 16th this season--and also had an assist to move past Pittsburgh’s Jaromir Jagr for the league lead with 51 points. Kariya also has a league-leading 35 assists.

Kariya’s first goal also gave the Ducks their first two-goal lead since their 7-2 rout of the Buffalo Sabres on New Year’s Day. It also was the first time the Ducks had scored more than two goals in a game since Jan. 1, which helps explain why they lost three in a row.

Backup goaltender Dominic Roussel stopped 21 of 22 shots in his first appearance as a Duck at the Pond. Shane Doan’s goal on a second-period breakaway was the only Phoenix shot that got past him.

Fredrik Olausson scored the Ducks’ first goal, with the team on a power play late in the second period. Steve Rucchin scored the go-ahead goal 26 seconds into the third period.

However, following their recent method of operation, the Ducks faced off against two opponents Friday--themselves and the Coyotes.

The final, frantic moments of the second period illustrated the point perfectly.

First, Olausson scored a power-play goal at 17:33 of the second period, accepting a cross-ice pass from Matt Cullen and whistling a shot past Phoenix goalie Nikolai Khabibulin.

Less than a minute later, the Coyotes had scored the equalizer on Doan’s first goal of the season.

All things considered, a 1-1 tie heading into the third period probably wasn’t so bad for the struggling Ducks.

But it was how Doan scored that had the Coyotes’ spirits soaring and the Ducks wondering what might go sour next.

After all, a simple clearing pass eluded Duck defensemen Pavel Trnka and Pascal Trepanier. Doan roared in on Roussel and slipped the puck between his pads for a 1-1 tie at 18:22.

If Trnka or Trepanier had handled the pass into the neutral zone from Mike Stapleton, the Ducks would have had a well-earned, 1-0 lead going into the third period.

Instead, it was goodbye lead, goodbye momentum.

This one figured to be a tight-checking game filled with the usual assortment of hard hits along the boards and in front of the net when these teams play.

The Ducks and Coyotes didn’t disappoint, renewing their long-running feud that peaked during their first-round 1997 playoff series won by Anaheim in seven games.

Jeremy Roenick of Phoenix plastered Travis Green in the face with a high stick early in the game.

Duck defenseman Jason Marshall and Phoenix’s Brad Isbister dropped the gloves and fought during an entertaining middleweight bout late in the first period.

Bob Corkum of the Coyotes crashed heavily with Selanne into Phoenix’s Gerald Diduck and Kariya in a four-player pileup along the boards early in the second period.

Later, Duck enforcer Stu Grimson traded a cross check with a slash with former Duck Oleg Tverdovsky and both earned seats in the penalty boxes.

And so it went.