Ducks’ Giguere Master of Wild

Petr Sykora had seen this type of performance by a goalie before ... during his seven seasons playing for New Jersey.

Paul Kariya had seen a shot of his go in the net before ... but it was becoming a fading memory.

The Mighty Ducks have seen the light shining at the end of the tunnel before ... maybe this time it’s not that oncoming train.

Such were the positive thoughts surrounding the Ducks’ 1-0 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday. They had Jean-Sebastien Giguere playing as if he should be in the All-Star game, and Kariya ending the longest goal drought of his career. What more can a team ask for?

A few more games like this, perhaps.

“From here on out, every game against a team in the [Western] Conference is huge,” said Giguere, who stopped 33 shots and tied a team record with his sixth shutout this season.

The victory left the Ducks tied for eighth place with the Colorado Avalanche.

Giguere and Kariya pushed the Ducks to victory by playing the pack mules Saturday.

A large chunk of Coach Mike Babcock’s mantra is that “your best players have to be your best players every night,” a belief he holds as if it was chiseled on tablets and hauled down from a mountaintop.

The 18,568 at the Xcel Energy Center saw the Ducks’ best players at their best.

Kariya had gone without a goal for 12 games, a streak that seemed destined to continue after he missed a golden opportunity five minutes into the game. Adam Oates fed a wide-open Kariya, whose shot was deflected at the last moment by goalie Dwayne Roloson.

“At that point, you’re thinking, ‘God is it ever going to happen?’ ” Babcock said.

Seconds later, it did.

After the miss, Kariya lurked near the blue line, where he intercepted Antti Laaksonen’s pass and fired a blur into the upper left corner of the goal.

“It has been a tough three weeks,” Kariya said. “I read the pass, had some time and picked a good spot.”

And that was the Duck offense. The Ducks had the first five shots of the game, then were outshot, 33-8, during the last 50 minutes.

The Wild spent most of the second period and much of the third period in the Ducks’ zone. But Giguere stopped everything.

Very few of his saves looked spectacular because of how well Giguere positioned himself. The one big exception was after he lost his stick in the third period and did a belly-slide across the crease to get his blocker on Cliff Ronning’s shot.

Sykora recognized this kind of effort, having spent his time in New Jersey watching Martin Brodeur carry the Devils to such victories.

“I just know that [Giguere] is going to make the game-saving save,” Sykora said. “You felt that way with Martin all the time.

“The two of them, they are both so competitive. When they give up a goal, even in practice, they get [angry]. That makes practice good for me, because I really have to work to score on [Giguere].”

The only shot that got by Giguere was a blast by Willie Mitchell from the blue line, and that hit the post three minutes into the third period.

“You hear that sound and then you hear the crowd go ‘oooh,’ and that’s nice,” Giguere said. “That was the only shot I didn’t get a good look at. They were in our zone a lot, but sometimes that looks worse than it is. The guys did a good job of taking opportunities away and clearing the rebounds. That made it easy for me.”