Ducks See Vintage Roy

Mighty Duck goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere spent a lot of his childhood watching the Canadiens’ Patrick Roy frustrate opposing teams at the Montreal Forum.

If you were a goalie and lived in Quebec, there was only one person to emulate. Giguere tried to do that Wednesday, but left frustrated anyway.

Giguere was good. Roy was better. The Colorado Avalanche benefited from an unusual call and came away with a 2-1 victory in front of 18,007 at the Pepsi Center.

Giguere stopped 29 of 31 shots. But the Ducks came up empty against Roy until the final minute.

“Since I was young, I have been watching him,” said Giguere, who grew up in the Montreal area. “I know every time we play against him, it’s going to be hard. I can’t give up a lot of goals because we aren’t going to win the game. I got to hold the fort as long as possible.”

Roy’s victory moved him to within two of 500. However, it didn’t come easy.

The Ducks, coming off a 5-1 victory over Minnesota on Tuesday, might have picked up another point if not for a questionable call.

With the Avalanche leading, 1-0, in the third period, Paul Kariya was cruising from behind the net, only to be dragged to the ice by Colorado defenseman Greg De Vries. De Vries was called for hooking. But referee Chris Rooney also gave Kariya a penalty for diving--the first, Kariya said, of his career.

“It was ridiculous,” Kariya said. “The guy has a stick around my neck, what do you want me to do? I don’t know what he was trying to prove.”

Instead of a power-play advantage, the Ducks skated four-on-four, which hasn’t been their strong suit lately. They were hurt in that situation again.

Former Duck Pascal Trepanier, who had two assists, powered to the net, but Giguere stopped him. The rebound went to Milan Hejduk, who had skated untouched between two Duck players and chipped in the rebound for a 2-0 lead 5:19 into the period.

“We gave up a power play and they score,” Kariya said. “That was a big turn.”

That goal loomed larger when the Ducks, who pulled Giguere with two minutes left for an extra attacker, finally beat Roy. Matt Cullen came from behind the net and jammed the puck between Roy’s legs to deny him his 59th shutout.

“I saw [Paul] get taken down,” Coach Bryan Murray said. “I said to [Rooney] ‘Paul Kariya for diving?’ I have never seen Paul Kariya take a dive and they call a penalty on him?”

Meanwhile, Roy, who finished with 22 saves, was strong during a scoreless first period, when the Ducks controlled the play. During a power play, Andy McDonald chipped at a wide-open net, but Roy managed to slide to his right to make the save. A moment later, Kariya got off a good chance that Roy deflected.

“Patrick is one of the best goalies to play the game,” Kariya said. “It takes a good shot to beat him and he was on top of his game tonight.”

Giguere wasn’t bad either.

Coming into the game, the Duck goalie had a 1.47 goals-against average and .943 save percentage in his last six games. Yet, he had only a 2-3-1 record to show for it.

He could do little on the Avalanche’s first goal.

Steven Reinprecht’s cross-ice pass found Trepanier alone by the left post. Giguere moved quickly, but Trepanier merely slipped a pass to Drury, who was alone by the right post. His goal gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead 1:53 into the second period.

“We have are playing hard,” Murray said. “We’re playing intense. We have four lines playing well. We just don’t score enough on a regular basis.”