Ducks will move along

The first order of business for the Ducks in the Stanley Cup playoffs is now complete.

It didn’t turn out to be a sweep against the Minnesota Wild, but the Ducks took care of their Western Conference quarterfinal series in short order with a 4-1 victory in Game 5 on Thursday night.

As a rollicking sellout crowd of 17,318 at the Honda Center waved them on with orange towels, the Ducks advanced to the second round for the second consecutive season.

“Obviously it’s the first step in hopefully four series for us,” Chris Pronger said. “We played probably the best game of the series tonight and we needed it.”

It was a balanced effort that ushered the Wild out. Pronger, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Travis Moen all scored goals, with Pronger also getting two assists along with Scott Niedermayer and Dustin Penner.

And there was also Jean-Sebastien Giguere. After starting Ilya Bryzgalov in goal for the first four games, the Ducks turned to Giguere, and the veteran made 26 saves despite not starting a game in three weeks.

“That was a tough one because Bryzgalov had played so well for us,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said.

The Wild staved off elimination with a 4-1 victory Tuesday night and appeared to be full of vigor heading into Game 5 even though its top defenseman, Kim Johnsson, wouldn’t be playing because of a head injury suffered when Ducks winger Brad May punched him in Game 4.

May was suspended for three games, but Minnesota seemed bent on retribution.

Wild enforcer Derek Boogaard exchanged words with Pronger and Getzlaf during the pregame warmup and nearly everyone else on the ice joined in to set off a long round of pushing and shoving.

There were even wayward pucks thrown about. Teemu Selanne got hit with one that needed 10 stitches to close a gash over his right eye.

Then the Ducks got serious.

“I think that was a good wake-up call,” Selanne said. “When we got back [on the bench], I saw the eyes we had. Everybody was ready. The war was on.”

Pronger immediately had the Wild backpedaling when he ripped a slap shot through a screen past Minnesota goalie Niklas Backstrom for a 1-0 lead 62 seconds in.

It was apparent that the pregame fracas backfired against the Wild.

“A minute into the game, it’s 1-0,” Pronger said. “It didn’t work out too well for them, did it?”

Boogaard played a key role in the Wild’s Game 4 victory as he set up the game-tying goal by Pierre-Marc Bouchard and drew a penalty on the Ducks’ Kent Huskins that led to the game-winner by Marian Gaborik.

On Thursday, it was a high-sticking penalty on Boogaard that cost the Wild as Getzlaf scored the eventual game-winning goal at 16:29 of the second period after Marian Gaborik tied it with a short-handed goal.

Perry added a third-period goal and Moen finished off the Wild with one into an empty net. The Ducks finished the night with 39 shots on Backstrom.

“We gave up a short-handed goal and those can kill you,” Getzlaf said. “But we bounced back the way we wanted to and it just exploded from there.”

The Ducks also welcomed back defenseman Francois Beauchemin, who sat out Game 4 after getting hit with a shot in Game 3. Beauchemin wound up playing a game-high 28 minutes 32 seconds.

But the biggest addition might have been Giguere, who looked confident in the net as he controlled rebounds all night.

“I tried to make as many saves as I could in practice to be ready in case I was going to go in,” Giguere said. “I felt good. But you’ve got to give credit to the players in front of me. I think they did most of the stuff.”

A turning point came in the decisive second period when they bailed themselves out of a two-man disadvantage after Niedermayer picked up a double-minor for high sticking and Sean O’Donnell went off for clearing the puck over the glass.

“The bulk of it was Jiggy,” Pronger said. “When you don’t give up rebounds and he wasn’t, it’s pretty much making that first save and not letting anything out. It’s pretty easy to kill.”

eric.stephens@latimes.com