Giguere Still Has Many Doubters

New team, same themes.

The Mighty Ducks didn’t play better, they just won the game. It’s only a matter of time before the red light burns bright behind goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Just you wait and see.

Detroit players said such. And how could you not believe a passel of players headed for the Hall of Fame?

Dallas players said that. And the Stars had the meaty bodies to enforce their will, right?

Now comes the Minnesota Wild. Stymied in a 1-0, double-overtime loss to the Ducks in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Saturday, the Wild shrugged about Giguere. Psst, by the way, his pads are illegal.

The Ducks have heard these things throughout the playoffs and are content to let sleeping dogmas lie heading into Game 2 tonight at the Xcel Energy Center.

“When you’re not scoring goals, of course, you start looking for excuses because you want to change that,” Duck defenseman Keith Carney said. “That’s typical. You get frustrated whenever you can’t score.”

The Ducks received a 39-save effort from Giguere, one of which will be replayed on highlights for some time. They gritted out an overtime game, as they did in Game 1 against both Detroit and Dallas.

That brought echoes for those past series.

“I thought we controlled a lot of the game,” Wild winger Antti Laaksonen said Saturday. “We just have to do a better job of finishing plays.”

A quick flashback:

“We feel we outplayed them in every aspect of the game,” center Mike Modano said, after the Ducks won Game 1 in the fifth overtime.

The Ducks were sluggish against the Wild, which did look fresher and faster. But the Ducks found a way to win the game, when Adam Oates chipped a puck up ice and Mike Leclerc led a two-on-one break, feeding Petr Sykora for the game-winning goal.

“We don’t need to do anything differently, other than get the puck in the net,” Wild center Wes Walz said.

That has been a difficult thing to do against the Ducks for much of the playoffs. Giguere ranks first in goals-against average (1.43) and save percentage (.954).

And the Wild has seen this act before, as it lost twice to the Ducks in the regular season, both games 1-0 shutouts by Giguere.

“Sooner or later the puck has got to go into the net,” Wild winger Marian Gaborik said. “We had great opportunities [Saturday.] If we keep getting chances, it is going to go in.”

A quick flashback:

“We had a lot of chances, Giguere just kept them out of the net,” Detroit’s Kirk Maltby said after the Red Wings lost Game 1 in the third overtime.

Giguere gets scarier for opponents as games go longer. He has made 91 overtime saves in the five overtime playoff games. He is nearing Patrick Roy’s overtime goal-less record of 162 minutes 56 seconds, set in 1993. Giguere has gone 160:49 in overtime without giving up a goal this postseason.

Gaborik had a sure thing with an open net to shoot at in the second period Saturday. Giguere reached back with his stick and made the save. That rivaled the skate save Giguere made on Modano in Game 4 of the semifinals, also a 1-0 Duck victory.

“If I make a spectacular save, it means I did something wrong,” Giguere said. “I have had two of those. That is enough for one playoff.

“That’s not the way I want to make saves. I was out of position. I was lucky. I want to be square to the shooter, square on the puck.”

The Wild started whispering that there is something less square and more crooked going on.

“His pads might be oversized,” Laaksonen said.

A quick flashback:

“I don’t know what the regulations are or whatever, but his pads are way too big,” Dallas’ Claude Lemieux said before Game 1 of the semifinals.

Giguere seems less enthralled with such playoff gamesmanship this time around.

“My pads are legal,” he said. “I don’t care. They have been measured, so what can I say?”

You can excuse the Wild some, having just come off a seven-game series playing against Vancouver’s Dan Cloutier. Wild players saw the worst a goalie can be in the playoffs and are now seeing the high end.

Wild Coach Jacques Lemaire has a clue. But then he probably has reviewed enough game tape from the Ducks’ previous playoff series.

“Their goaltender was really good, as he was in the past series,” Lemaire said after Saturday’s game. “He beat a lot of better shooters than maybe we have, but we got to find a way to score against him.”

But, Lemaire added in a repeat-after-me tone, “we are not playing against Giguere, we are playing against Anaheim. We are not competing against Giguere.”