Ducks Turn Up Power on Sharks

Craig Hartsburg has it pegged. They are all big games now for the Mighty Ducks. Every shift, every pass, every shot, every save can make or break their playoff chances.

There’s no sense pointing out that it’s the Ducks’ own fault for letting it get to this point--a must-win situation in each of their final 18 games.

What’s done is done. Besides, the Ducks showed desperation is a terrific motivator in a 4-2 victory Tuesday against the San Jose Sharks before a sellout crowd of 17,483 at San Jose Arena.

“It’s like the playoffs for us,” Hartsburg said of the stretch run, which began in earnest with a 4-4 tie Feb. 23 against the Vancouver Canucks and a 3-2 victory Sunday against the Edmonton Oilers.

“This was our biggest game of the year,” the Duck coach added. “We move on now and our next game [Thursday at Vancouver] will be our biggest game of the year.”

Playing their fourth game without captain Paul Kariya, who was at home in Orange County rehabilitating his bruised right foot, the Ducks played a patient, hard-nosed game.

Amazingly, the Ducks are 2-1-1 without Kariya in the lineup and 2-0 without getting a goal from Teemu Selanne in the last two games.

The Ducks scored twice on their power play, got standout goaltending from Guy Hebert and a backbreaking third-period goal by third-line winger Mike Leclerc.

The victory vaulted the Ducks into ninth place in the Western Conference standings. They trail the eighth-place Sharks and the seventh-place Colorado Avalanche by two points in the battle for the final two playoff spots.

“Right now, it’s like do or die,” said center Matt Cullen, whose deflection of Ruslan Salei’s shot from near the blue line produced the Ducks’ first power-play goal.

Defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky’s power-play goal gave the Ducks a 3-2 lead with 1:42 left in the second period. Tverdovsky sneaked toward the net from the left point, accepted a cross-ice pass from Kip Miller and lifted a shot over goalie Steve Shields’ right shoulder for his career-high 11th goal.

“All of a sudden, their forwards went low and left me by myself,” Tverdovsky said. “It was a great pass. Right on my stick. I buried it.”

Trailing, 2-1, 42 seconds into the second period, the Ducks rallied with suffocating defense and some gritty play in the attacking zone.

Vincent Damphousse and Owen Nolan scored power-play goals for the Sharks. But scoring chances were few and far between for San Jose in the game’s final 30 minutes.

Marty McInnis, replacing Kariya on the Ducks’ top line, scored the tying goal at 11:30 of the second. McInnis tapped a pass from Steve Rucchin into an open net. Rucchin beat Ron Sutter on a faceoff to Shields’ right, pushing the puck ahead and creating a two-on-one with a hard-charging McInnis from point-blank range.

On Tverdovsky’s goal, Ted Donato took the puck away from a scrum behind the Shark net, passed along the right-wing boards to Miller, who found Tverdovsky cutting for the net.

“We were losing in the second period and the game was slipping away from us,” Tverdovsky said. “We needed something and Rucchin had a big goal. It gave us an emotional pump. We didn’t feel tired any more.”

Leclerc scored the Ducks’ fourth goal at 11:37 of the third period. Linemate Ladislav Kohn pounced on a turnover in the Shark zone, dropped a pass to Antti Aalto, who slipped the puck to an open Leclerc on right wing. Leclerc supplied the finish, sliding the puck into an open net.

The Ducks throttled the Sharks the rest of the way, killing off two shorthanded situations in the third period. San Jose also managed a meager four shots on Hebert in the final period.

“We played so solidly in the third period,” Selanne said. “I think we’re finally learning something. The last eight games we would have three more wins if we had held the lead in the third. . . . [But] we have to file this one away and think about the next one.”

Next stop: Vancouver and the next biggest game of the season.

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KINGS: 1

VANCOUVER: 1

A tie with the Canucks enabled the Kings to solidify their grip on a playoff spot. Page 3

HOT HAND

Fredrik Olausson has helped put the spark back in the Ducks’ power play. Page 4