Teams showed respect

Over the course of a tight playoff series, it’s not unusual for any dislike between teams to grow into open animosity, with hard hits and cheap shots carrying over from night to night.

But that wasn’t the case in the Western Conference finals, which ended with the Ducks’ 4-3 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night at the Honda Center.

“You always have respect for your opponent and in this series, every game has been like a rivalry game,” Ducks forward Travis Moen said of facing the Red Wings. “It’s really been a battle out there.”

Even with the Ducks’ Chris Pronger suspended for one game for his hit to the head of the Red Wings’ Tomas Holmstrom in Game 3, the conference finals were not marred by the type of nastiness often seen in close matchups such as this one.

According to Moen, the Red Wings’ overall skill level made it important for the Ducks to keep their composure. That’s part of the reason why in the six-game series, the only fighting penalties came in Game 1, when the Ducks’ Shawn Thornton squared off with Detroit’s Danny Markov.

“We know that we have to go out there, keep our cool while playing hard in order to beat this team,” Moen said before Game 6. “It’s not quite to the point” where the Ducks know what gum the Red Wings chew, “but you definitely know their tendencies out there. You kind of know what they are going to do in some situations, so you kind of look at that.”

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Red Wings Coach Mike Babcock said the playoff run was productive because of the experience gained by the team’s younger players such as Valtteri Filppula, Tomas Kopecky, Jiri Hudler and Kyle Quincey.

“When I coached junior hockey, we used to say they were two for one for a league game, because of the development,” Babcock said of the Red Wings’ less-experienced players. “In the new NHL, where there’s a cap, where development is almost sustained, you’ve just got to develop guys....

“To me, you’re learning to play with pace. You’re learning to embrace playing at this time of the year. You’re seeing guys who know how to handle what it’s all about, and the other thing you find out is who you want in your organization and who you don’t.”

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Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said he and his wife, Kristen, are hoping that one day their infant son, Maxime, will be able to see out of his deformed right eye, a condition he was born with.

“He’s doing great,” Giguere said of his first-born child. “How could I put it? It’s a condition he has. We’ve kind of figured that one out. And eventually he will need some surgery on it.... His eye right now is really small.

“So the surgery that they can do [is] to try to make his eye bigger and to a normal size. From there they’ve got to go in, see if they can give him some kind of vision.”

Giguere said Maxime, who was born April 4, continues to have normal vision out of his left eye.

“He should be able to have a normal life just like anybody else,” he said.

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For the second game in a row, Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle played two rookies on the fourth line with Ryan Carter, who got his first postseason minutes in Game 4, and Joe Motzko, who made his postseason debut in Game 5.

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Times staff writer Eric Stephens contributed to this report.

lonnie.white@latimes.com