O’Donnell’s Goal Lifts Ducks Past Wild, 2-1

Every conversation about the Ducks seemingly begins and ends with Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger. It means a veteran such as Sean O’Donnell does his work in the shadows of the two superstar defensemen.

There are times when the overlooked have their moments in the spotlight and Friday night was one of them for O’Donnell, who banged in the eventual game-winning goal in a 2-1 victory over the previously unbeaten Minnesota Wild in front of an announced crowd of 13,410 at the Honda Center.

It was the 24th career goal for the longtime blue-liner and it kept the Ducks’ season-opening hot streak going. With a franchise-best 5-0-2 start, the Ducks and Buffalo Sabres are the only teams in the league without a regulation defeat.

O’Donnell seized his opportunity midway through the second period on a play set up by the work of forwards Rob Niedermayer and Samuel Pahlsson as the Ducks had a delayed Minnesota penalty in progress.

Niedermayer fished the puck out of the right corner to Pahlsson, who saw O’Donnell cut to the net and fed him a perfect pass that the low-scoring defenseman banged in.

It was O’Donnell’s fourth goal in a Ducks uniform after coming over from the Phoenix Coyotes last March. It won’t match his goal that won Game 4 of last season’s Western Conference quarterfinals against Calgary, but it’ll do.

“Going up against [Marian] Gaborik and [Pavol] Demitra, I’m not pinching down there unless I know [for sure],” O’Donnell said.

“I looked back and saw Jiggy coming and I heard the bench yelling ‘delayed’ so that’s the only reason I took that chance.”

The goal gave the Ducks a 2-0 lead that they protected behind a strong defensive effort and the goaltending of Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Giguere gave up only Pierre-Marc Bouchard’s goal in making 27 saves and appears to have secured the starting job.

Their performance also comes after a convincing victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Minnesota (6-1) suffered its first loss after winning its first six games for the first time in its six-year history.

“I think the one thing that the coaching staff and the guys in this dressing room have certainly harped on is you’ve got to go out and give your best effort mentally and physically every single night,” center Todd Marchant said.

“Fortunately for us we’ve been able to maintain that in about five and a half of the seven games we’ve played. We’ve had a few bad periods here and there, but we’ve been able to recover from them.”

The Ducks took some momentum into the first-period intermission as they managed to keep the game scoreless by killing a four-minute high-sticking penalty by Ryan Getzlaf.

Part of that was done by checking forwards Marchant and Travis Moen, who had to remain on the ice for a full two minutes as the Wild continually kept the puck in its zone.

It was the highlight of a stout effort by the Ducks as they killed all four of their short-handed situations.

“We got caught out there for quite a bit of time there,” Marchant said. “If you look at their chances, they were from the outside. We wanted to limit their quality chances.”

Scott Niedermayer ended the impasse at 3:25 of the second when his bad-angle wrist shot along the right boards snuck under the pads of Minnesota goalie Manny Fernandez.

The Ducks continued to apply pressure to Fernandez, who made 13 of his 27 saves in the second but was powerless to stop O’Donnell’s goal.

“I enjoy scoring them,” O’Donnell said. “There’s other things I like doing better. But there always fun to get.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com