Ducks get job done in a pinch

The Ducks had every excuse to feel a bit defeated Tuesday night.

Already having an injured Sean O’Donnell on the sideline, they lost center Todd Marchant to a lower-body injury before their key Pacific Division battle with the San Jose Sharks.

And as the game went on, the Ducks’ situation grew dramatically worse when Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Francois Beauchemin left in the second period and didn’t return.

So it was with a collective sigh of relief that they somehow left the HP Pavilion with a hard-earned but potentially costly 4-3 victory.

“It was big when you have a group of guys that put forth the effort that they did tonight and they got the results,” Coach Randy Carlyle said. “It wasn’t pretty, but we’re not going to critique a win.

“Our work ethic has been at the forefront of our success. It’s a tribute to our players’ commitment.”

Corey Perry got the deciding goal at 10 minutes 20 seconds of the third period when he got his stick on a point shot by Samuel Pahlsson and deflected the puck past goalie Evgeni Nabokov.

“We did a good job,” defenseman Chris Pronger said. “We kept it simple. We didn’t try to get outside ourselves, knowing that they were going to make a push. It was a situation where we needed to bear down.”

The Ducks (28-5-6) extended their lead in the division to 12 points by outworking San Jose in the third period and closing ranks defensively around backup goalie Michael Wall after Giguere left because of a groin injury at 16:24 of the second period after Steve Bernier’s goal.

San Jose had only one shot in the first 16 1/2 minutes of the third period and managed only four in the period. The Sharks also got a two-man advantage when Pronger was called for a delay of game for flipping the puck in the stands, although the defenseman said Milan Michalek deflected the puck.

“It went off his stick,” Pronger said. “The replay clearly shows that.”

The Ducks managed to kill it off without Pronger and the services of usual specialists Marchant, O’Donnell and Beauchemin. Pahlsson, Scott Niedermayer and Joe DiPenta were on the ice at the start of the disadvantage.

Beauchemin has a lower-body injury and will be reevaluated today in Anaheim. Marchant had returned home before the game, and O’Donnell was nursing a severed tendon in his right middle toe.

Dustin Penner and Chris Kunitz scored in the second period to rally the Ducks from a 2-1 first-period deficit. Travis Green scored his first goal this season.

“It’s always tough when a couple of big parts of the team get hurt,” Niedermayer said. “We were able to kind of fill in for them as best we could. We just kept battling, and it paid off for us.”

The biggest price the Ducks may pay is if Giguere is seriously injured. The veteran goalie has largely avoided his usual groin and hamstring issues and is having a career season with an NHL-leading 23 victories and a 2.12 goals-against average.

Regular backup Ilya Bryzgalov already has sat out 10 consecutive games because of a strained groin. Wall has played in a little more than four periods in the NHL.

Giguere was injured when he went to cut off the angle to Joe Pavelski and awkwardly tried to slide back to his left when Pavelski’s pass went through DiPenta’s legs to a waiting Bernier in the slot.

“When you go through an 82-game schedule, there are gut-check games and we responded,” Carlyle said.

eric.stephens@latimes.com