Ducks earn a chance at it all by giving it their all

Teemu Selanne had waited and wished so long for this chance, he had begun to wonder whether it would ever arrive.

After 14 NHL seasons and a year lost to a lockout, he feared that he would never play for the Stanley Cup, that the opportunity to have his name etched on the distinctive trophy would be a regret he would brood about someday through the long winters of his native Finland.

If that was a tear and not a bead of sweat that rolled down his face in the Ducks’ locker room Tuesday after they won the Western Conference championship and earned a berth in the Stanley Cup finals against the Ottawa Senators, who could blame him?

It was certainly appropriate, because it took blood, sweat and tears for the Ducks to eliminate the Detroit Red Wings in six games, a series that tested the Ducks’ resolve until the final seconds of their 4-3 victory Tuesday at a rollicking Honda Center.

Selanne supplied the tears of joy.

Todd Marchant supplied the blood after he was struck on the nose by a high stick in the third period and, in typical hockey-player fashion, returned within minutes.

Every member of the Ducks supplied the sweat, building a 4-1 lead and then scrambling to protect it against the late-surging Red Wings.

All offered without hesitation for the chance to embrace that big silver cup.

“This is a very special moment for me,” said Selanne, who will be 37 in July. “I’m going to enjoy every moment of this.”

He earned that right. So did every one of his teammates.

After splitting the first two games of the series, at Detroit, the Ducks absorbed a 5-0 pasting at home that could have derailed them. Instead, they renewed their faith in themselves and won the last three games.

Selanne led the way, contributing six points in those three victories. But he was hardly alone.

“It takes 22 guys to accept the roles what we have here. Everybody has done their roles as good as they can, and that’s what it takes,” he said.

“This is a big family. We’re all like brothers. Last year, it was disappointing when we lost in the semifinals, but I really believe that was a learning process for this year.”

They could not have taken this step without clutch goaltending from Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who was swarmed in the frantic final minutes Tuesday and was helpless on the two power-play goals that made the score close. His Detroit counterpart, Dominik Hasek, suggested that Giguere might have outplayed him, but Giguere demurred.

“It’s always the better group that’s going to get out of it, not the better goalie,” he said, “and I truly believe that.”

The Ducks were the better group. Not luckier, as some critics suggested.

Better.

“I heard what Brett Hull and Ray Ferraro said,” Selanne said of the NBC analysts who criticized the Ducks and predicted that Detroit would rally to win the series.

“And you know what? I couldn’t care less what they say. It’s not about them. It’s about us.

“You have to earn your luck. It doesn’t matter how you get there.”

They will face Ottawa in the finals, starting Monday at the Honda Center, because they were better, deeper, more resourceful.

“You do what it takes to win four games and we did that,” said winger Brad May, who contributed a much-needed infusion of energy with some grinding shifts in the third period Tuesday.

They proved they can win on the road, taking two of three games at Joe Louis Arena. They also proved they have the grit to match their talent, taking the smallest of openings against the top-seeded Red Wings and turning them into big achievements.

“All year, this team has persevered through a lot of adversity, whether it be injuries or the funk we were in, in the middle of the year,” Marchant said before going for X-rays on his nose.

They would not have gotten this far without sterling defensive play and faceoff wins from Sammy Pahlsson, who outdueled Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk to set up the short-handed goal that gave the Ducks an early 1-0 lead Tuesday and drew the crowd into the developing drama.

They would not have won without Scott Niedermayer’s smoothest and best game of the series or the physical presence of Chris Pronger. Nor would they have prevailed without the game-high 31 minutes 13 seconds played by Francois Beauchemin.

They were built for this by General Manager Brian Burke, who had to find the right mix of talent and tenacity, of youngsters and veterans, and fit them under a $44-million salary cap.

On Tuesday, the Ducks moved that much closer to a fabulous finish.

“These guys, they’ve been on a mission all year and I was fortunate to be added late,” said May, a trade deadline-beating acquisition. “You come in here and you couldn’t help but feel the emotion and the sacrifice and see what these guys are willing to go through, and I’m really happy to be a part of it.”

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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.