Selanne Breaks Ice With Hat Trick

Old habits died hard here Thursday.

Teemu Selanne sought out an old friend, turning away briefly from his new teammates in the San Jose Sharks’ dressing room, to lay a bear hug on Paul Kariya, his old linemate, outside the Mighty Ducks’ locker room.

With their teams separated by roughly 400 miles of freeway and nearly that distance in the Western Conference standings, Kariya and Selanne still managed to put on another electrifying episode of the “Paul and Teemu Show.”

The first game between the Ducks and the Sharks since Selanne was traded March 5 from Anaheim to San Jose for winger Jeff Friesen, goalie Steve Shields and a draft pick was a runaway victory for the Sharks, however.

Selanne’s first goal in seven games as a Shark capped a four-goal second-period rally, propelling San Jose to a 7-4 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 17,496.

Selanne scored twice more in the third period, the last into an empty net with 1:05 remaining, igniting the first of several standing ovations for him.

Kariya had already scored three times, his third power-play goal of the game briefly drawing the Ducks to within 5-4 only 1:58 into the final period.

But Selanne took a rebound off the end boards and sent the puck off Duck goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere and into the net from an impossible angle for a 6-4 San Jose lead at 7:54. Selanne’s empty-netter almost blew the roof off the newly renamed Compaq Center.

“Great game,” Kariya said as he embraced Selanne after the game. They never had hat tricks in the same game as teammates in Anaheim.

“It’s great to see him get going,” Kariya told reporters moments before greeting Selanne. “He’s really been struggling [after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery a day after the trade]. He seemed to have more jump in his stride tonight. He had a good game. It would have been nice if we could have gotten a win tonight.”

The first person to grab Selanne after he scored a second-period power play goal was Kariya. As quickly as you can say, “Finnish Flash,” the two separated after accidentally bumping into each other. Kariya was in no mood to celebrate Selanne’s one-timer from the left faceoff circle with 17 seconds left in the middle period.

“I saw him,” Selanne said. “I thought he was going to give me a hug.” Asked about getting tangled up with Selanne, Kariya said simply, “Strange things happen.”

Until the Sharks roared back from a 3-1 first-period deficit, it seemed Friesen’s homecoming would be a happy one. The raucous crowd, many wearing Friesen’s old No. 39 Shark jersey, cheered him when he skated onto the ice for the pregame warmup.

The fans shouted his name during the national anthem, several saying, “We love you, Friesen.” They cheered when he took a holding penalty 21 seconds into the game. They cheered when he assisted on Kariya’s first goal at the 2:58 mark.

Friesen, added Thursday to the Canadian team that will play in the world championships next month in Germany, had only the one assist.

“Things couldn’t have gone any worse,” he said. “There’s an empty feeling. That’s a great hockey team over there [the Sharks]. These are great fans. It’s a great place to play.”

On this night, the Ducks needed more than anyone--Friesen and Kariya included--could provide. This game belonged to Selanne and the Sharks.