Giguere’s Biggest Save Came Not in Net, but in the Spoken Word

Whatever Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s save percentage in the Stanley Cup playoffs turns out to be -- and he ensured it will be eye-popping by extending his playoff-record overtime shutout streak to 168 minutes 27 seconds Monday -- it will not reflect his biggest save of the season.

The diving stick stop he made to repel a shot by Minnesota’s Marian Gaborik and help the Mighty Ducks clinch the Western Conference title was acrobatic, and the save he made on his knees to prevent John Madden from scoring on a breakaway late in the second period against New Jersey on Monday was impressive. But neither was his finest hour.

The moment he became not merely a superb player but a superb leader occurred Friday, when the Ducks returned home after opening the Cup finals with two embarrassing losses at New Jersey.

After the team filed off the bus and into the locker room at the Arrowhead Pond, Giguere issued a passionate challenge to his teammates, appealing to their pride and professionalism. He followed that with an emotional speech at the team’s daily news conference, telling reporters -- including some who had dismissed them as losers -- that the Ducks deserved to be in the finals, no matter the results of the first two games.

With those words, with that fire, Giguere saved the Ducks’ season.

Their 1-0 overtime victory Monday before an ecstatic, towel-twirling crowd at the Pond sent the teams back to New Jersey tied at 2-2. But Giguere’s bold challenge, which he followed with a 31-save performance Saturday and a 26-save gem Monday, has clearly swung the emotional balance of the series in the Ducks’ favor.

“Jiggy showed that he’s a great leader,” said Steve Thomas, who scored the only goal Monday by pouncing on the long rebound of a shot by Samuel Pahlsson and flicking it past Martin Brodeur 39 seconds into overtime. “He showed that somebody had to step up, and no one better than a guy who’s been our wall throughout this whole playoff.

“And no one respects him more than myself for actually doing that. And I think you’re going to find that the 25 or 30 guys that are in our locker room share the same feeling I do. It was good timing and it was the right thing for him to do. We fed off that, big time.”

Not for a second did Giguere fear his teammates might not respond to his call.

“I wasn’t scared of that at all,” he said. “I said it because I really believed in it and I was confident the guys would answer back. That’s the way we’ve been all year. That’s all we needed, a little challenge, maybe.”

A big challenge, really.

He’s 26 and hasn’t been in the NHL as long as Thomas or Adam Oates or Paul Kariya, but he can recognize the fickleness of fate and knows this group might never be in this position again. To let this chance pass without taking full advantage would be something they’d regret forever.

“I wasn’t angry. I just wanted my point to be clear,” he said. “I wanted to put my point across.”

And he knew how to underline it by repeating his message to the media throng covering the finals.

“Sometimes, there’s no better way than in the papers,” Giguere said, laughing. “You [reporters] love that stuff.”

What’s not to like, when he and the Ducks have backed up their words as persuasively as they’ve done in the last two dramatic, tense games? “Anybody who tells me this game was not exciting because there wasn’t a bunch of scoring, I don’t know what you’re on,” Giguere said.

But Game 4 might not have meant much for the Ducks if not for Giguere’s oration, which forward Dan Bylsma summed up as “just the cold facts.”

“We’re skating better. We’re playing better,” Bylsma said. “A number of guys in the playoffs had stepped up and said things at the appropriate time.... Maybe J.S. wanted to step up. It was the right time.”

Had he waited or not said anything at all, the season might have been lost.

“If somebody doesn’t stand up and make a stand, the series is over and you wonder what could have happened,” Coach Mike Babcock said. “When you do that, you put a ton of pressure on yourself. You have to be able to answer the bell.

“He’s skilled and mentally tough enough and demanding of himself enough [that] he’s able to do that. Obviously, because we’re here talking about it.”

Giguere insisted it goes against his nature in this, the most team-oriented of sports, to call attention to himself. But he saw a need and filled it, and because he did, the Ducks are within two victories of claiming the Cup.

“When I said we needed more emotion, I was talking about myself, my teammates, the coaching staff,” he said. “We needed to go after their team. Now, we’re playing the way we’ve been playing all year....

“This is a great way to learn, to get better as a team and as a player. It doesn’t get better than this.”

Sure it can, if they win two more games. “This is even better than what I imagined,” he said. “There’s nothing better than when you live your dream. This is exciting right now. That said, we have a lot of work left.”

They’ve shown they’re not afraid of hard work. Or of challenges and dreams.