Ducks get physical and beat the Canucks

Anyone who has criticized the post-lockout NHL for not being physical enough can look at Sunday’s game between the Ducks and the Vancouver Canucks as a strong rebuttal to that theory.

The two hot teams collided early and often at the Honda Center. But what the Canucks and other teams don’t realize is getting tough with the Ducks is a strategy that’s often doomed to fail.

The Ducks won most of the battles and Teemu Selanne and Andy McDonald each scored two goals to stop surging Vancouver in its tracks in a 4-2 victory that extended their home winning streak to six games.

Now 9-1-3 in their last 13 games, the Ducks (42-17-11) were able to keep their 10-point lead over Dallas and San Jose, which were also victorious Sunday.

The win, before another sellout crowd of 17,174, was the most impressive of the five so far on this eight-game homestand as they handled a Vancouver team that had won five in a row and was an NHL-best 24-4-4 since Christmas.

“Obviously, they’ve been one of the hottest teams in the NHL and we knew this was going to be a great test for our hockey club,” said Selanne, who reached 40 goals for the seventh time to lead all active players. “It was almost like a playoff game. The intensity level was there.”

Was it ever. The teams combined for 104 penalty minutes, with 54 of them assessed in a rough-and-tumble first period that included three separate fights.

At game’s end, even normally mild-mannered Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer and equally benign Canucks winger Daniel Sedin were pushing each other around.

“I think they wanted to show they were physical and weren’t going to get pushed around,” Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “Saying that, everybody knows around the league that we have a team that can answer back when it’s time to be physical. I’ve never played for a team that’s so tough.”

The tone was set early when Dustin Penner rammed Canucks center Tommi Santala into the boards with a hit that didn’t draw a penalty. Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa jumped Penner on the ensuing rush and was whistled for an instigating a fight with the rookie winger.

Selanne made the Canucks pay with an easy tap-in behind Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo as the goalie failed to secure Francois Beauchemin’s long-distance shot. The goal made the ageless Finn the first player 35 or older to record back-to-back 40-goal seasons.

McDonald then scored goals 1:02 apart in the first to break a 1-1 tie before Selanne tacked on some insurance in the third period with his league-best 22nd power-play goal. Beauchemin also had a career-high three assists.

“We worked very hard,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “I thought our first period was probably the strongest first period we’ve played in the last two or three weeks.”

The Ducks killed all seven Vancouver power plays and also had the edge in goal as Giguere made 23 saves to outduel Luongo, who was trying for his team-record 40th victory.

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Linesman Vaughan Rody suffered a torn pectoral muscle during the first period and is expected to be out of action for four to six months. Rody will undergo surgery either today or Tuesday. It was unclear how he was injured.

eric.stephens@latimes.com