No Substitute for Experience

Rob Niedermayer chips the puck off the board and out of the Mighty Duck zone late in the game. It gets noticed.

Todd Marchant works a two-on-one break and slips a perfect pass to Samuel Pahlsson, who scores. Others see it.

Jeff Friesen crashes the net and deflects the puck for a goal. It registers with teammates.

Strategically placed among the young and the restless on the Duck bench is the Niedermayer-Marchant-Friesen line. The three had combined to play 158 Stanley Cup playoff games before this season. That experience has been apparent in the Ducks’ series against the Calgary Flames, which resumes in Game 3 at the Arrowhead Pond tonight.

“Having them around helps all of us,” said forward Chris Kunitz, one of six first-year players on the Duck roster. “They don’t have to say anything, you just watch how they handle themselves. It’s late in the game and you see Rob chip the puck off the boards, you know not to try to take some one-on-one when you’re out there. Just make the safe play.”

The Ducks and Flames are tied, 1-1, in a series that figures to get rougher, which will make the play of these veterans even more vital. All three are capable of bump-and-grind performances that will be necessary to beat the Flames, whose physical play took them to the 2004 Stanley Cup finals.

Niedermayer has been to two Cup finals, one with the Ducks in 2002-03. Friesen won a Stanley Cup with the New Jersey Devils in 2002-03. And, while with the Edmonton Oilers, Marchant survived six hit-or-be-hit playoff confrontations with the Dallas Stars.

Their fingerprints were all over the Ducks’ 4-3 victory in Game 2 on Sunday, including Marchant’s assist on what turned out to be the game-winning goal.

“All three of them have been through this before and know the intensity the playoffs bring,” Duck Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We get a calming effect from them. That’s what happened [Sunday]. They kept us from getting too excited.”

In Game 1, it was a Niedermayer backhander that Friesen deflected into the net that sent the game into overtime. Although the Ducks lost, it sent a message that they were not going to roll over for the defending Western Conference champions.

“You’re not surprised by anything because you have been through the playoffs before,” Niedermayer said of his experience. “You know how the intensity gets raised. You can try to tell the young players, but you don’t know until you experience it firsthand.”

The Ducks expect the Flames to answer Sunday’s loss with more intensity.

The Flames gave up more than three goals only five times in 26 games during their run to the 2004 finals. Each time, they held opponents to two or fewer goals in the next game, including three shutouts.

“The games are only going to get tougher,” Duck goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “We know Calgary is going to tighten up and it will be hard to score on them. We have to do he same.”

And, as playoff experience has taught Friesen, “You just have to go grind it out, especially against a team like Calgary.”

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The will-he or won’t-he game with Giguere continued Monday. He sat out Game 1 with what was described as a “lower-body injury,” then brought the Ducks home a winner Sunday.

Asked about Giguere’s status for tonight’s game, Carlyle said, “Didn’t you get the memo on that?” He then said whomever seemed to give the Ducks the best chance to win -- Giguere or Ilya Bryzgalov -- would start tonight.

Giguere was equally coy, saying, “It’s better to prepare for a game and not play than to not prepare and then have to play.”

Asked how his groin was, Giguere smiled and answered, “It’s not the groin.”

The Ducks did send goaltender Nathan Marsters back to Portland, Maine, their minor league affiliate, Monday. He had been recalled Friday morning.

“You can read between the lines there,” Carlyle said.

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The Ducks were buoyed by the fact that they hardly gave their best performance in winning Game 2.

“I thought we played better in the first game,” Teemu Selanne said. “It’s funny how things go. Sometimes you play a great game and you lose. We didn’t play that well [Sunday], but we won. You can never tell how the puck will bounce. But we know we have to play better.”

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Duck officials were encouraging fans to get to the Pond early tonight. The Angels also play a 7 p.m. home game, which will add to the traffic congestion near the arena.