Ducks accent title with a win

The first form of validation for their season-long success finally arrived for the Ducks moments before their final game of the regular season.

As they finished their warm-up and left the ice Saturday night, word quickly filtered through the dressing room of Vancouver’s 4-3 overtime victory over San Jose, which gave the Ducks their first Pacific Division title.

“Someone just came in the room and said, ‘Congratulations,’ ” defenseman Sean O’Donnell said. “It was one of the non-players. I’m not naming names.”

What followed against the Columbus Blue Jackets might have had little meaning, but the Ducks weren’t about to spoil a signature moment for the franchise as they got their record 48th victory in a 4-3 win at Nationwide Arena.

In setting another record with 110 points, the Ducks (48-20-14) also clinched the No. 2 seeding in the Western Conference and will open the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday or Thursday at home against Minnesota.

The Wild (48-26-8) is locked into the seventh seeding after Vancouver clinched the Northwest Division with its victory. It will be a rematch of the 2003 conference finals, which the Ducks swept in four games on their way to their only appearance in the Cup finals.

“It’s just the next race,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “It’s the next step in the process.”

Teemu Selanne scored two goals to finish with 48 for the fourth-highest total in his long career. At 36, Selanne is the oldest player to have scored that many goals in a season.

Some players tried not to watch the results of the Vancouver-San Jose game, but Selanne was keeping tabs on it along with members of the training staff. He was astonished when San Jose, needing a victory to keep its title hopes alive, tied the score with 32 seconds left in regulation.

“I was peeking at the scoreboard every chance I could during the warmup,” said Selanne, whose 540 goals are 26th all time. “It was still 3-2 and then I heard it went to overtime. I thought, ‘Unbelievable.’ ”

Dustin Penner and Ryan Getzlaf also scored, with Getzlaf’s tally giving the Ducks five 25-goal scorers for the first time. Getzlaf also had two assists, his second three-point game this season.

Ilya Bryzgalov, playing while Jean-Sebastien Giguere is home tending to his newborn son’s health issue, made another strong case for his playoff readiness in goal by making a season-high 42 saves.

The Ducks took over first place in the Pacific Division on Oct. 27 with a point in a shootout loss to Minnesota. They held on to that position for the next 162 days despite a spate of injuries and a midseason swoon along with stiff challenges from San Jose and Dallas until the end.

O’Donnell said he remembers talking to some players when the Ducks had a 27-4-6 record in December.

“Everybody was already [predicting] us to be playing Buffalo for the Cup and who was going to win,” he said. “I remember talking with guys in here and we said to tell the press, ‘Let’s just settle down. We’re only halfway through.’ ”

The Ducks had only six wins in 20 games from Dec. 23 to Feb. 13, but finished with a 15-4-6 flourish.

“When we broke up after last year’s playoffs, our mandate when we came back to training camp in September was that we wanted to become a hockey club that was going to challenge for first place,” Carlyle said. “We felt with the acquisition of [Chris] Pronger over the summer and the returning players that we had, we had the skill level” to do it.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com