Ducks Forced to Give Added Effort

This required a lot of effort by the Mighty Ducks.

Cam Severson had to score his first NHL goal.

Vaclav Prospal had to dig out a puck and flick it on net.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere had to stop point-blank shots by the NHL’s leading goal scorer not once, but twice in the last 25 seconds.

Sergei Fedorov’s empty-net goal with 5.5 seconds left finally allowed the Ducks to exhale.

The Ducks spent a lot of energy to get a 3-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets Wednesday night in front of 12,898 in the Arrowhead Pond, maybe more than should have been necessary.

“We are desperate right now,” said Giguere, who has given up only eight goals in five starts since the All-Star break. “We found a way to get the job done.”

The aftermath had upbeat numbers.

The Ducks, with their third consecutive victory -- matching their season high -- and fourth in the last five games, were left eight points out of a playoff spot. They moved into 12th place in the Western Conference.

But a team already in a precarious position continued to work without a safety net.

The 14th-place Blue Jackets were troublesome throughout and the game appeared headed to overtime. But Prospal managed to scrape the puck out of a scrum following a faceoff and whip a wrist shot that beat Marc Denis to end a 1-1 tie with 1 minute 49 seconds left.

“I was just trying to shoot it through their defenseman,” Prospal said. “Maybe the goalie didn’t see it. Who cares?”

That the Ducks held the lead was due to Giguere. Twice with time running out, Rick Nash, who is tied for the league lead with 31 goals, was alone at the crease with the puck. Both times, Giguere smothered his shot.

“Maybe that’s not an ideal situation,” Giguere said. “But it is my job to stop shots.”

The Ducks, though, seemed to make it tougher on themselves.

The Blue Jackets are the worst road team in the NHL with only three victories away from home. They had only seven shots at the halfway point of the game, yet the score was tied, 1-1.

“Even though we are not playing our best right now, we are getting wins,” said Prospal, who has 11 goals in the last 15 games.

The Ducks had an 18-4 advantage in shots after one period. The Blue Jackets didn’t get a puck on net in the last 13 minutes of the period. Yet, all the Ducks had to show for that overwhelming edge was a 1-1 tie.

More worrisome was the fact that the Blue Jackets got their goal by creating an opportunity. The Ducks, meanwhile, were handed the opportunity.

Columbus’ Todd Marchant deflected the puck and it landed at Geoff Sanderson’s feet, right in front of the net. He fired quickly and beat a stunned Giguere for a 1-0 lead 5:55 into the game.

The Ducks got even after Denis stopped a shot, but had the puck squirt out behind him. Severson swooped in and tapped it into the net for his first NHL goal 11:49 into the first period.