Giguere’s world alters drastically

Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s world began to implode last Wednesday when his son was born with a deformed right eye, shattering all of the dreams he and his wife, Kristen, had dreamed for their firstborn.

Not until they began to suspect that the baby’s left eye might also be damaged did the Ducks goaltender, so strong and sure and fearless on a hockey rink, feel as helpless as he had ever felt in his life.

“It was when they checked the second lid that we really kind of fell apart,” he said quietly.

Giguere’s heart was lighter Wednesday. With the help of club owners Susan and Henry Samueli, Giguere and his wife have been able to consult top-notch doctors, one of whom told them that baby Maxime Olivier should have normal vision in his left eye.

That news didn’t fix everything. But it was uplifting enough for Giguere to practice Wednesday morning and once again think about hockey, which he had shunted to the darkest and most distant recesses of his mind.

Giguere didn’t start the Ducks’ playoff opener Wednesday at the Honda Center, a rugged, 2-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild. The Ducks prevailed without him, as stand-in Ilya Bryzgalov made 24 saves and Dustin Penner jammed home a loose puck with 5:20 to play in the third period for a lead the Ducks protected energetically.

Coach Randy Carlyle told his goaltenders Wednesday morning that Bryzgalov would start and Giguere would watch. Giguere believed he was ready to return, but he accepted the decision without fuss.

“He’s the coach and that’s his job,” Giguere said. “My job is to be ready when I’m called upon.

“I’ve been in this situation before. I’m just going to be supportive for the team.”

Had the baby been fine, as his wife’s smooth pregnancy and normal test results had led the couple to believe, Giguere would have missed no more than one game and he would have been called upon to start Wednesday.

Absorbing the shock of his son’s condition and taking the baby to doctors for a diagnosis kept him away from the rink, and understandably so. Before a light skate Wednesday morning, Giguere had gone through only one full practice in the last week since his last game, a 3-2 overtime victory over St. Louis on March 31.

That game was a brilliant effort in a season of fine efforts that had restored him to the ranks of the NHL’s top goaltenders and hinted at great things to come in the playoffs.

Until his life turned upside down.

“Jiggy, since the first day of training camp this season, wanted to prove he belongs to the best in the league. From the first day he came into camp ready to work,” said Francois Allaire, Giguere’s goaltending coach and close friend.

The last week “wasn’t perfect preparation for the playoffs,” Allaire said, but the conditioning base that Giguere had built all season had remained strong. More important, his attention and his heart were restored too.

“I expect him to be right back mentally and physically 100% back for the team,” Allaire said.

The Ducks’ playoff opener was the kind of game Giguere would have enjoyed: fast-paced, hard-hitting, a fair amount of scoring chances. The kind of game in which he excelled during the team’s run to the Stanley Cup finals in 2003, when he shut out the Wild three times in the Western Conference finals and repelled 122 of the 123 shots they threw at him.

But four years is an eternity in hockey, long enough to change a lot.

Only six players who wore Wild uniforms during the 2003 playoffs remain with the team; only three Ducks remain from the squad that lost to New Jersey in the seventh game of the Cup finals, a journey they made on the back of Giguere and his playoff-MVP performances.

As Giguere has learned, the world can change drastically in a few minutes, let alone a few years. To cope, he is developing a different kind of strength now, one that’s not purely physical.

One that is deeper than he knew he was capable of mustering.

“It’s totally different. It’s something that you’re not prepared for,” he said of his son’s condition.

“I was saying two days ago that hockey just doesn’t matter when it comes down to family. Nothing is more important in my life than my immediate family. It was a real tough week, not knowing what’s going to happen. It was mostly for my son. It’s a tough way to live, if you don’t know if everything is working for you.”

The specialist who examined the baby on Tuesday “pretty much ruled out any possibility of him not seeing from the left eye so that was great news for my son,” Giguere said.

“He’ll be able to do whatever he wants to do in his life, and that’s all we can ask at this point.”

Giguere just wants to resume doing what he does best.

“I’m the provider of the family, so I’ve got to do what’s best for my family to bring in some money and make sure that they’re OK in that sense,” he said. “My job is right here at the rink....

“I feel like I can come here now and really focus on what I have to do on the ice and be ready when I’m called upon.”

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.