No Pronger, no problem for Ducks’ defensemen

The Detroit Red Wings skated up ice in a blur of red and white and tried to poke holes in the Ducks’ patched-together defense, pressing to tie the score in the third period and seize control of the Western Conference finals.

When they tried to carry the puck into the Ducks’ zone, they were turned back by the sheer persistence of a defense bonded by desperation.

When they tried to spring someone off a rush, a Ducks defenseman or winger invariably made the right play and took the puck back, softly tapping it off the boards and into the neutral zone to negate the threat and force the Red Wings to regroup.

The Ducks had to face the Red Wings on Thursday without dominant defenseman Chris Pronger, who was suspended by the NHL for his vicious hit on Tomas Holmstrom on Tuesday. And the Red Wings, a veteran team, scented the possibility of a kill -- or, at least, the opportunity to sweep the two games at the Honda Center and earn a ticket to the Stanley Cup finals back home on Sunday.

But if the Ducks missed Pronger’s booming shot from the blue line and his massive physical presence, they more than compensated with purpose and grit.

A defense corps that might have wilted under duress instead stood up when it mattered, playing a vital role in the 5-3 Ducks victory that evened the best-of-seven series at two games each.

If it seemed an unlikely turnaround from the 5-0 embarrassment the Ducks had suffered on Tuesday, it didn’t surprise the Ducks themselves.

“We have a lot of character in this room,” defenseman Sean O’Donnell said.

“Detroit came in and schooled us the other night, and we wanted to make more of a statement tonight.”

Their statement was this:

Don’t count them out.

“We know if we play well we can do some good things out there,” Scott Niedermayer said.

“Our last game before this was not a good one. We got a better effort tonight and we need more of the same. The series is shorter now and it probably gets tougher.”

But they will get Pronger back when they face the Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena, where the Ducks won the second game of the series after narrowly losing the opener.

“We’ll make some room for him,” Francois Beauchemin decided.

They made do on Thursday thanks to Beauchemin’s playing a game-high 34 minutes 29 seconds, Scott Niedermayer’s 34-minute effort and the shorter but no less vital contributions of defensemen who have toiled in the shadow of the top three.

From Ric Jackman’s first playoff goal on his first shot in his first postseason game -- against a pretty fair goaltender by the name of Dominik Hasek -- to stalwart performances from O’Donnell and Joe DiPenta, to Kent Huskins’ smooth promotion from a fifth defense spot to fourth, the Ducks’ defense did more than hold its own.

It carefully tended the team’s playoff hopes and burnished them with a gutsy effort in a game the Ducks had to win.

“We kind of understood that we all had a little more on our plate in this game,” Huskins said. “Me and Joe and Ric, we played a few more minutes than we’re used to and in more situations than we’re used to.

“That’s why we practice all these months, for situations like these.”

DiPenta played 8:47, only 44 seconds more than his playoff average, but he made every second count.

“We didn’t want to go back to Detroit down, 3-1,” he said. “We had to come up big and we had some guys step up their games, especially with Chris being out.”

They all stepped up in the third period, while the Ducks were clinging to a hard-earned 4-3 lead. They didn’t let the Red Wings make any more of the tic-tac-toe plays that had generated gasps from the standing-room-only crowd of 17,375, the many Red Wings fans venting frustration and the Ducks fans venting relief.

They didn’t let the Red Wings dominate the area in front of goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, as Todd Bertuzzi had done in scoring once and Dan Cleary had done in scoring on a rebound and on a redirection.

“We were just trying to stand them up at the blue line and make it hard on them to gain our line and gain the zone,” DiPenta said. “Our first line of defense is to stand up at the blue line, and that’s what caused all those turnovers.”

If the best defense is a good offense, Jackman provided that with his improbable goal at 11:46 of the first period. “It was exciting,” he said with a gap-toothed smile. “It felt fantastic to be out there. I was nervous at the start but once I got into it, I felt pretty good.”

To Huskins, it felt like a dream. “It definitely was exhilarating,” he said. “Playoff hockey at its best.

“That’s why you play the game, to be out there in situations like that.”

They turned a potential crisis into a triumph. The defense never rested.

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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.