Ducks Pull No Punches

The Mighty Ducks finally got a chance to make another team fighting mad for a change, and the result was a black eye for hockey.

By the time the Ducks completed a 4-0 victory over the Calgary Flames on Saturday night, all anyone could talk about was the brawl-filled third period that featured 19 fighting majors.

There were 309 penalty minutes in the game before 14,330 at Pengrowth Saddledome.

What triggered the bad blood between the teams was a series of runs both teams made at goaltenders Jean Sebastien-Giguere and Mike Vernon.

The Ducks were angry because the Flames’ Craig Berube slammed into Giguere when he tried to play a puck away from the net, and Calgary was not pleased when the Ducks’ Kevin Sawyer retaliated by running into Vernon while he was in the crease.

“Tonight was the best game we’ve played this season,” said Giguere, who had to make only 18 saves before he left the game for fighting with 32 seconds remaining. “I think we can use this to turn this season around.... We stood up for each other.”

Vernon, who finished with 24 saves, was making his first start at home for the Flames in almost 10 months.

The veteran goalie has not seen much action since Calgary picked up Roman Turek, but with the Turek sidelined because of right knee injury, Vernon got the call despite going 0-10-2 since Feb. 24 with all of his starts being on the road.

Before the game, Calgary Coach Greg Gilbert said he was not worried about Vernon, who stopped 15 of 16 shots he faced against San Jose after Turek was injured.

“Vernie’s playing well,” Gilbert said. “We have to play well in front of him and cut down the opposition’s Grade-A scoring opportunities.”

Grade-A scoring opportunities have not happened too often this season for the Ducks, who entered Saturday’s game with the second fewest amount of goals scored in the Western Conference. But that’s exactly what they had in abundance in the opening period.

After losing in overtime at Edmonton and then falling short by a goal at Vancouver in the first two games of a four-game trip, the Ducks executed their game plan to perfection early against Calgary.

Sparked by a stop made by Giguere on a penalty shot against Calgary’s Jarome Iginla, the league’s leading scorer, the Ducks took a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes.

In facing his first career penalty shot, Giguere didn’t bite on a couple of fakes made by Iginla and then calmly finished the play with a kick save at 8:23.

Following Giguere’s penalty shot save, the Ducks took a 1-0 lead on a power-play goal by Paul Kariya at 14:41.

A nifty pass from defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky set up Kariya for his 11th goal and only the Ducks’ sixth power-play score on the road this season.

The Ducks stretched their lead to two goals 74 seconds later when Patric Kjellberg knocked in a rebound for his second goal of the season, following a Vernon save made on Sergei Krivokrasov.

In the second period, Anaheim continued to outwork the Flames and the effort paid off when defenseman Jason York scored on a five-on-three power play to give the Ducks a 3-0 lead at 14:11.

German Titov finished the scoring when he took in a pass from Jeff Friesen, who finished with three assists, 15:10 into the final period.

“It’s great how we all stuck for each other,” said Kariya, who was the target of several hard hits from the Flames early in the game.

He was sent to the penalty box by Coach Bryan Murray to serve an infraction for Sawyer before the fighting began.

The Ducks will complete their four-game trip at Colorado on Monday.