Giguere Is Still Tough on Wild

Jean-Sebastien Giguere insisted he thinks only of the present and the future and doesn’t dwell on the past, specifically his playoff success last spring.

“Last season was last season. This season is a different scenario,” he said.

But in facing Minnesota on Sunday and New Jersey four days earlier, the Mighty Ducks drew inspiration from their playoff series against those teams last spring. And even though Giguere gave up as many goals to the Wild on Sunday as he did in the Ducks’ sweep of Minnesota in the Western Conference finals, the Ducks were happy to leave the Xcel Energy Center with a 1-1 tie and earn a point for the 11th consecutive game.

“Just like when New Jersey came in to play us and we weren’t exactly world beaters. You get fired up to play the game and you play hard,” Coach Mike Babcock said after his team played its league-leading 11th overtime game and eighth in the last 11 games. “Emotion is a big part of this game, especially when you play a playoff team from last year.”

Giguere shut out the Wild in the first three playoff games -- two in Minnesota -- in the West finals, but Wes Walz’s wraparound at 2:10 of the first period Sunday ended his shutout streak in Minnesota at 207 minutes 29 seconds over five games, including playoffs. Walz took a pass from Antti Laaksonen and faked a shot before skating around and tucking it inside the left post.

“He’s got enough equipment on for two goalies,” Walz told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “No wonder he couldn’t get over.”

Nor, apparently, can the Wild get over losing to the Ducks last spring.

The Ducks pulled even at 18:35 of the second period. Ruslan Salei backhanded the puck toward the net from the point and Rob Niedermayer was able to deflect it but without much force. Defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh, taking a chance by skating deep into the zone, lifted it over a sprawling Manny Fernandez for his fourth goal of the season.

“I saw Rusty [Salei] handling the puck and I gambled a little bit and slid toward the net,” Ozolinsh said. “I was in the right place at the right time.”

So was Giguere all but once Sunday against the Wild, which had lost its previous four games but showed gumption by driving to the net fairly often.

“They’ve got a team that works really hard. They’re a fun team to play against,” said Giguere, who made 25 saves and had sound positioning. “If you want to be successful, you’ve got to work hard, and I like to work hard.

“He [Walz] came in with speed. I tried to cover the bottom of the net. He had such speed it was almost impossible for me to get across. He made a nice play.”

Giguere made a better play to thwart Marian Gaborik on a short-handed breakaway late in the first period after Gaborik got past Ozolinsh and accelerated in the neutral zone. Giguere dropped to his knees to close his pads, drawing groans from 18,568 fans who no doubt had flashbacks to Giguere’s work against the Wild last spring.

“I thought that was his best game of the year,” Babcock said. “It was the most controlled and poised. That’s a good sign.”

To Giguere, it’s a good sign that the Ducks have accumulated points in the standings. They haven’t lost in regulation time since a 3-1 loss at Chicago on Nov. 2 and are 4-0-3-4 since then. But because the NHL has a separate category for overtime losses for teams but not goalies and charges goalies with a loss, Giguere is 4-10-2 and the team is 8-7-4-5.

“There were a few losses in overtime, but at the end, all the points we can get are important,” he said. “It’s kind of weird I’ve got more losses than the team, but what can you do?”