Ducks Are Fired Up in Charron’s Debut

Pierre Gauthier, Mighty Duck president and general manager, wanted passion. He wanted energy and optimism. He wanted something vastly different than what he had been seeing from his team in the season’s first 33 games.

A day after firing Craig Hartsburg as coach and replacing him with Guy Charron, Gauthier got all that and more in a 6-4 victory Friday over the New York Rangers at the Arrowhead Pond.

An announced crowd of 14,944 watched the Ducks skate purposefully from start to finish, which was one departure from recent efforts.

Left wing Mike Leclerc’s second goal of the game, and his 12th this season, put a free-skating game out of reach for the Ducks, giving them a relatively safe 6-4 lead with 4:11 remaining. The Ducks had a season-high 42 shots on goal.

To be sure, the Ducks were far from flawless Friday. However, given the tumult of Hartsburg’s firing Thursday and the absence of top-line forwards Steve Rucchin and Teemu Selanne because of injuries, this was as fine a victory as any of the Ducks’ past 11 this season.

At game’s end, the fans gave the Ducks a standing ovation, perhaps their first since an opening-night victory against the expansion Minnesota Wild.

Center Tony Hrkac replaced Rucchin, sidelined by lightheadedness, on the top line. Selanne, sidelined by a groin strain, was replaced by rookie winger Petr Tenkrat, who scored his first NHL goal.

Selanne took part in the morning skate and in the pregame warmup but decided against playing. He was injured in Sunday’s 1-0 loss to the Dallas Stars. He hopes to play Sunday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the fourth game on this five-game home stand.

Rucchin’s return date remains uncertain. He has played only two games since suffering a broken nose and cheekbone Nov. 15 against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Ducks hardly seemed to miss either player against the Rangers. They needed only 33 seconds to show a small, but energetic crowd that things might be different under Charron.

On the opening shift of the game, Marty McInnis fed a cross-ice pass to a streaking Matt Cullen on left wing to set up the Ducks’ first goal. New York goalie Mike Richter, focused on McInnis on right wing, was too far out of position to stop Cullen’s quick shot from the left.

The Rangers, who squandered a two-goal lead in a 5-5 tie Thursday against the Kings, clicked on their league-leading power play to tie the score. Michael York split defensemen Pascal Trepanier and Pavel Trnka and swatted a rolling puck by goalie Guy Hebert at the 7:51 mark.

Tenkrat, driving hard to the net, scored with 1:57 left in the opening period to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead that wouldn’t last long.

Theo Fleury whipped a centering pass from Ranger captain Mark Messier past Hebert only 1:02 into the second period for a 2-2 tie. It was Fleury’s 21st goal, tying him for the league lead with Ziggy Palffy of the Kings.

The Ducks seemed poised to break the game wide open in the first 8:38 of the middle period, taking a 4-2 lead on goals by Paul Kariya on a breakaway and McInnis on a power play.

But a questionable no-call and a fortunate bounce enabled the Rangers to pull within 4-3 at 11:03.

First, Hrkac carried a Ranger on his back behind the New York net, but received no justice from referees Dennis LaRue and Greg Kimmerly.

Next, the puck bounced past Duck defenseman Niclas Havelid at the right point, freeing New York’s Radek Dvorak for a breakaway. Dvorak applied a clinical finish, lifting a quick shot past Hebert.

Instead of folding, as they so often have when things haven’t gone their way this season, the Ducks rallied. McInnis beat Messier on a faceoff in the right circle, Cullen won a race to the puck in the corner and put a centering pass to Leclerc right on his tape. Leclerc slammed the puck past Richter for a 5-3 lead with 3:38 left in the second period.

After 40 minutes, the Ducks had outshot New York, 36-18. Every Duck skater except defensemen Ruslan Salei and Vitaly Vishnevski and center Marc Chouinard, who made his NHL debut, recorded at least one shot on net.