Niedermayer enjoys being needed

Scott Niedermayer had been retired for only a few months when he discovered he wasn’t cut out for a sedentary life.

He longed for the camaraderie he had enjoyed in the Ducks’ locker room and among the members of his carpool group, which included his brother, Rob.

He yearned for the simple pleasure of gliding over a smooth sheet of ice, of threading a pass to a teammate or breaking up an opponent’s scoring rush with a perfectly timed poke-check or a shift of his body.

Most of all, the 34-year-old defenseman discovered that he couldn’t rest unless he gave himself one more chance to end the season by lifting the Stanley Cup high above his head, as he had last June in fulfilling his dream of teaming with Rob to win hockey’s ultimate prize.

“Initially, my feeling was that I’d had enough,” he said of his self-imposed exile.

“And as time progressed, I watched some games on TV and sort of felt more and more like I was part of the team and I wanted to be on the ice helping as much as I could.”

To Niedermayer, “helping” means consistently playing at a level few NHL players attain.

It means playing upward of 25 minutes a game and bringing a calming presence that is instantly communicated to his teammates, no matter if they’re short-handed or under siege and unable to get the puck out of their end of the ice.

It means winning.

It’s no coincidence that in the three games Niedermayer has played, the Ducks -- whose penalty killing was dragging along at a 78.8% success rate -- have killed all 14 disadvantages they have faced. After losing in a shootout in Niedermayer’s first game back, they have now swept a back-to-back sequence for the first time in six tries.

No coincidence there, either.

Niedermayer played 22 minutes and seven seconds in the Ducks’ 2-1 overtime victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after he had played nearly 22 minutes in a shutout victory at San Jose. In both games, he was his old imperturbable self. Smooth. Reliable. Smart.

He broke up a potential scoring play by Colorado’s Paul Stastny on Wednesday with less than a minute to play in the third period by using his stick and his smarts and his leverage. Countless times he got the Ducks out of their own zone and accelerated their transition from defense to offense with a quick first pass that got them moving up ice.

“Any time you’re able to put that level of player in your lineup, you have to feel very, very fortunate,” Coach Randy Carlyle said.

“And we haven’t asked him to do anything special other than be Scott Niedermayer, but that’s special in itself.”

Mathieu Schneider, who scored the winner Wednesday, said that when Niedermayer and newly acquired forward Doug Weight walked into the room, “the tide turned” for the Ducks.

“Some guys have their swagger back,” Schneider said. “It definitely felt a lot different.”

Niedermayer feels different too.

Involved. Needed. Jazzed.

“Maybe I just lacked those challenges that are right in your face, sort of,” he said Wednesday.

“We’re used to that as athletes. Every couple of days there’s going to be a big challenge to face.”

His biggest challenge has been to regain his old fitness. His groin muscles have been sore, a problem most players get past by the end of training camp, and he joked that he might be in worse shape now than when he returned last Sunday.

If this is what he can do when he’s not in good shape, imagine what he can do after a few weeks’ practice.

“It’s great just having a guy like that with his experience, the way he can skate and move the puck,” defenseman Chris Pronger said. “And the confidence level that guys have when he’s on the ice. You can just see the last couple games with him out there the way guys are a little bit more relaxed.”

Niedermayer alone can’t change all that has gone wrong with the Ducks as they try to shake their post-Cup hangover. But simply seeing him in the locker room and seeing his drive for excellence has already made the Ducks better.

“Just because Scotty is back and they made the trade for Weighter, you can’t think all your problems are solved. You’ve got to go out and solve them yourselves, be go-getters and start playing more consistent, start playing to our system, playing with more discipline,” Pronger said.

“All those things that we have been very good at up until this year. We can certainly use the next 40-something games to put ourselves in better position than we have this far.”

And they know that Niedermayer will be there to help take them there and conquer more challenges -- such as trying to win the Cup twice in a row.

That influenced his decision to return “maybe a little,” he said. “Just trying to do it again, whether you’ve done it before or not. It’s everybody’s goal when you come to training camp. . . . Obviously it was a pretty special year and we’d love to try and do that again, for sure.”

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