Revenge ruled out, and the cooler heads prevail

Breaking news from the Stanley Cup finals:

The referees who officiated Game 4 between the Ducks and the Ottawa Senators correctly identified an infraction Monday without video review or consultation with the Supreme Court of Canada or the United States.

The Ducks’ 3-2 victory, which propelled them into position to win their first Cup championship Wednesday at the Honda Center, will not be overturned by league officials, who seem to have delighted in overruling the referees they assigned to the Cup final based on a supposed merit system.

Of course, after penalizing Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin for slashing 58 seconds into the game -- a misdeed Beauchemin sheepishly copped to -- the referees called a phantom interference penalty on Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf late in the first period, buying the back flip that goaltender Ray Emery performed after Getzlaf had headed back to the Ducks’ bench.

And then there was the grievous foul that neither Bill McCreary nor Brad Watson seemed to see, one that made a deep impression on every member of the Ducks.

With time running out in the second period, Ottawa captain Daniel Alfredsson looked up at the scoreboard above center ice. Instead of flinging the puck on net and hoping for a favorable hop on the chopped-up ice at Scotiabank Place, he shot it at Scott Niedermayer from about 30 feet, hitting his Ducks counterpart in the midsection.

Hostilities ensued, resulting in roughing penalties against Samuel Pahlsson and Mike Fisher but no penalty against Alfredsson. Unlike the referees, the Ducks did not ignore the transgression.

“That was pretty bad from his part, I think,” Beauchemin said of Alfredsson.

“Obviously, I think that’s all he wanted to do. He just shot right at him. He probably wanted to hurt him and that’s something that there’s no sense and shouldn’t be allowed in the game. There should be a penalty and a warning from the referees, but nothing was said, so I guess we’ll live with it.”

Defenseman Sean O’Donnell, whose sterling effort helped the Ducks compensate for the suspension-induced absence of Chris Pronger, said he had seen such insults before.

“But usually it’s a personal thing. Someone elbowed someone or did something,” O’Donnell said. “That’s Scott Niedermayer you’re doing that to. I don’t think he’s ever offended or run anyone or done anything in his whole life.

“I wasn’t crazy about it. We took it as a sign of frustration on his part to get his team going and we rallied from it. I don’t know if he’s trying to get their team going or not.

“We got the win, and that’s all we concern ourselves with. We’ll try and finish it off Wednesday.”

Alfredsson said the play was innocent. Funny, but his halo was missing.

“I looked up at the clock and it had like six seconds left and I wanted to get a last shot on goal,” Alfredsson said. “But the puck didn’t go right and I tried to get it between my feet. Then I just shot it to get rid of it and it kind of hit him.”

He said he knew Niedermayer was there, “but it probably looked worse than it was.”

It looked bad enough to the Ducks, who have been cast as the villains throughout the playoffs, sometimes with good reason: Pronger has twice been suspended a game by the NHL for hits to an opponent’s head, and Brad May sat out three games for punching Minnesota’s Kim Johnsson in the back of the head during the first round.

But outside an iffy cross-checking penalty by Corey Perry in the first period, the Ducks showed remarkable restraint Monday. They had fewer power plays than their opponent for the eighth time in their last nine games -- the Ducks and Senators each had four advantages in Game 2 -- but they accepted the fact that they’ll never get the benefit of the doubt from the men carrying the whistles.

“That’s something we can’t control and we want to forget and move on,” Beauchemin said. “We want to stay more disciplined than we did tonight. We took three or four penalties in the first period, me first.

“We’ve played like that all year. That’s our mentality. We play a physical game and we’ll take some penalties. We’ve just got to take the right ones and not the bad ones.”

Perry said that while the Ducks “put ourselves in some holes,” their determination outweighed their momentary lapses.

“We kept pushing it and kept trying,” he said.

They succeeded because Niedermayer sensed his teammates’ distress and told them not to avenge Alfredsson’s insult, that they should stay calm and focused.

The play “really has nothing to do with trying to win a hockey game,” Niedermayer said. “We’re here to try and win a hockey game. So it’s as simple as that.”

And as simple as a 3-1 series lead, with three chances at one more victory.

“We need to have that killer instinct, that closer’s mentality and make sure we’re ready,” said Pronger, who was too nervous to watch much of the game. “It’s just that never-say-die attitude. We’re just going to keep pushing forward.”

One more step forward, and they’ll be Stanley Cup champions.

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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.