A poised Pronger sets the tone

This is why the Ducks were happy to pay Chris Pronger $6.25 million this season, why they traded two prized prospects and three draft picks to get him from Edmonton and rightly considered it a steal.

Because of the shot he launched Wednesday that led to their first goal, the one that brought them even with the Vancouver Canucks and proved they hadn’t lost their touch during the five-day layoff that followed their first-round playoff victory over Minnesota.

Because of the shoulder hit he inflicted against Vancouver winger Jeff Cowan in the first period, a notice of Pronger’s intent to launch the Ducks’ second-round playoff series with a bang.

Because of the self-sacrificing block he made on a shot by Vancouver’s Mattias Ohlund from the left point during a second-period Vancouver power play, helping the Ducks preserve what was then a two-goal lead.

Pronger’s feats weren’t the only reason the Ducks launched the second round of the playoffs with an impressive 5-1 victory at the Honda Center on Wednesday. Andy McDonald scored three times and set up one goal -- the first significant contribution by the team’s first line since the playoffs began -- and Ryan Getzlaf added a third-period goal that was the last shot goaltender Roberto Luongo faced before he was sent to the bench to rest up for Game 2, on Friday.

But without Pronger to lead the Ducks through the first period, without his poise to keep them calm after the Canucks struck first and his ability to raise the physical and emotional temperature of the game, they would not have had such a stunningly easy time against a team that was among the NHL’s best the final three months of the season.

“He made me a better coach,” Randy Carlyle said, as close to a joke as the Ducks’ dour coach ever gets.

“He’s Chris Pronger,” Getzlaf said, seeing no need to elaborate.

Pronger got his teammates to shake off what Getzlaf called “a little rust coming out there in the first period,” which contributed to Jeff Cowan’s goal at 7:07.

“That was a quick wake-up call,” Pronger said, “and a quick nudge to get things going in the right direction.”

Pronger did more than nudge. He shoved and sweated and pushed, playing a game-high 32 minutes 57 seconds over 34 shifts. He took four shots, delivered three hits and was credited with three blocked shots.

A spectacular night for most NHL defensemen.

To Pronger, it wasn’t anything special.

“I was just trying to get involved, get in the swing of things,” he said. “I just wanted to get a hit, make some hits.”

That physical element is the reason he complements Scott Niedermayer so well -- and the reason the Ducks’ $13-million investment in the duo this season may be the smartest money they’ve ever spent.

Niedermayer’s smooth, effortless skating is invaluable, and his speed allows him to recover when he takes chances offensively. Pronger isn’t as good a skater. But he has an enormous wingspan and his boundless endurance is perfectly suited for postseason success, as it was last spring when he led the upstart Oilers to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals.

He left Edmonton amid a flurry of indignation among the local citizenry. He asked to be traded and would not explain his reasons, although it was widely reported that his wife, Lauren, was unhappy living on the Canadian prairie.

Upon landing in Southern California, he maintained a low profile. Or as low a profile as a 6-foot-6, 220-pound hockey player can keep. That was no problem for the Ducks.

“If he didn’t want to be part of our leadership group at the beginning of the year, that was fine. Just go be Chris Pronger,” Carlyle said.

“To some degree, it’s an advantage that we play in a nontraditional hockey market that you can go hide a little bit. I think that’s what he did. I think he was able to get back to a comfort level.”

Pronger insisted he didn’t hide, but he welcomed the chance to escape the relentless scrutiny of the Canadian media.

“Obviously there’s not a ton of press, a ton of notoriety,” he said of Southern California. “We’ve slowly built that up and generated that in the community with our regular season and now the playoffs.

“It’s a little easier to go about your daily business without having to worry about people following you around and staring at you, and they don’t know who you are.”

A few more games such as he and the Ducks played Wednesday, and he might become a celebrity here.

OK, maybe he’ll get recognized at the supermarket.

But he wasn’t ready to promise anything just yet, despite such a large margin of victory.

“I don’t think that really matters. The important thing is that we won,” he said.

And that he didn’t hide. “He’s the type of player that the more you play him, the better he gets,” Carlyle said, adding that he probably won’t play Pronger quite as much every game.

“For such a short span, and especially in the first game, we required that from him tonight, and he delivered.”

--

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