Ducks’ Giguere Does a Solid Body of Work

The mystery was solved when Jean-Sebastien Giguere, masked and padded, waddled down the runway Sunday and led the Mighty Ducks onto the ice to warm up for their second playoff game against the Calgary Flames.

Until that moment, no one in the stands at the Pengrowth Saddledome knew if he had recovered from the “lower-body injury” that kept him out of the series opener.

Until a few moments before that, some of his teammates hadn’t known if he’d play, either.

“When did I find out? When I got here,” winger Joffrey Lupul said. “I didn’t know what the secret was, except that it just depended on how he’d feel.”

Giguere felt fine, to the ultimate dismay of the Flames.

He wasn’t the magician who led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup finals in 2003, the standard to which he will always be held, fairly or not. But he was good enough to stop 11 shots in the final period and 22 overall and preserve the Ducks’ 4-3 victory, sending the teams to Anaheim on equal footing for Game 3 on Tuesday.

He was at his best when it mattered most, after the Flames had pulled within a goal and were pressing the Ducks’ tired defense and he made a chest save on a hard shot by Craig MacDonald with 2 minutes 40 seconds to play.

Jonathan Hedstrom went to the penalty box for hooking Byron Ritchie away from the rebound, but Giguere stopped Daymond Langkow during the ensuing power play and stymied Matthew Lombardi with only a few seconds to play.

The stop on MacDonald “was a big, big save for us,” Lupul said. “He was there and he’s only going to get better as his lower-body injury heals.”

Lupul had the grace to smile as he spoke, playing his part in perpetuating the quaint ritual in which hockey teams engage every spring.

No broken bone or muscle pull is ever disclosed during the playoffs; everything is classified as a lower-body injury or an upper-body injury. The reasoning is that teams don’t want opponents to know players’ weak spots, because opponents would then hit those players in those areas. More likely, there’s not enough betting action to push the league to mandate disclosure, as the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball do.

Giguere has a history of groin and leg problems, and he probably pulled something badly enough to sit out Friday’s game. He decided after Sunday’s morning skate -- and after the injury hadn’t worsened by mid-afternoon -- that he was ready to go.

“I was pretty excited,” said Giguere, whose last playoff appearance was in Game 7 of the 2003 Cup finals, when he wept as he accepted the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs. “I didn’t have any doubts. In the warmup I felt good and I had confidence. Things went well and I’m really happy.”

He was reluctant to analyze the goals he’d yielded until he could see them again, but wished he could have back the Flames’ first goal, on which Jarome Iginla used Duck forward Ryan Getzlaf as a screen and snapped a shot past him from about 35 feet.

He couldn’t be blamed on Kristian Huselius’ power-play goal, which cut Calgary’s deficit to 3-2 at 11:53 of the second period, or the wicked, 45-foot slap shot by Dion Phaneuf at 15:31 of the third period that gave the fans renewed hope.

But Giguere and the Ducks sent them unhappily out into the cool, prairie night.

“One thing we were adamant about is we didn’t want 20 minutes,” Duck Coach Randy Carlyle said. “If it went for 100 minutes, we needed him to commit for 100 minutes.”

Only 60 minutes’ effort was required of him Sunday, and that was tough enough. Giguere said he planned to return Tuesday “unless I wake up [today] and feel sore. I have 48 hours to recover, so I don’t think it will be a problem.”

As protective as he was in front of his net, he was even more protective about the injury, saying only that it’s something he will have to tend to daily. “Maybe when this is all over, I’ll tell you,” he said.

Until then, he can add to his body of playoff accomplishments. Upper, lower, or otherwise.