Unlikely Duck fits the bill

For every Ferrari, there are hundreds more Ford F-150s on the road. Just as for every thoroughbred, there are many more dependable plow horses dotting the landscape.

In hockey, it’s no different. For every dazzling playmaker in the NHL, there are many more players who don’t fill up the official scoresheet but excel at doing the dirty work -- their true value only measured within the tight battles that make up the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Meet Travis Moen of the Ducks.

The Ducks will play for Lord Stanley’s silver chalice when they face the Ottawa Senators in Game 1 Monday night at Honda Center. And Moen, a 6-foot-2, 218-pound left wing who plays a physical game, is a key reason why the Ducks are at this point.

Yet the soft-spoken forward isn’t big news in Southern California, or even in his own dressing room.

“This is probably the most I’ve talked to reporters in a long time,” Moen said.

But in Stewart Valley, Canada, Moen’s exploits on the ice are all the rage.

“It is the news,” his mother, Sheryl, explained.

Understand this about Stewart Valley: It is a farming town, population about 75, located three hours west of the Saskatchewan capital of Regina. About 500 people live in the district in which the town is located.

And most of them have had their eyes glued to the television to watch their favorite son. When the Ducks clinched their berth in the Cup finals with a 4-3 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday to win the Western Conference, there was instant celebration in two countries.

“My phone was ringing as much as his phone was ringing,” Sheryl Moen said. “Everybody was watching him.”

The residents of Stewart Valley have seen Moen score four goals in the playoffs, including his first overtime winner in Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals against Vancouver. They saw him assist on linemate Samuel Pahlsson’s eventual winner Tuesday.

“They’re so proud of him,” Sheryl Moen said of the community’s support. “Everybody’s behind him and wishing him well.”

The Travis Moen who got a point on the scoresheet Tuesday night, though, is the same Moen who scored a mere 27 goals over three seasons of junior hockey and only nine more in two years with the American Hockey League.

“I was never a goal scorer,” Moen said. “I’ll chip in here and there. But what’s part of my game is hitting and being good defensively. That’s more my game. But I like to score goals, though.”

In his second season with the Ducks and third in the league, the unassuming 25-year-old has developed into an all-purpose performer.

Need a goal? Moen scored a NHL career-high 11 this season. Need a penalty killed? He’s been a regular on the unit from the beginning of the season. Need someone to crash and bang? The winger has nine of the team’s league-high 71 fighting majors.

“He knows his job,” Pahlsson said. “He can step up and take care of himself. And he’s scored some big goals in the playoffs and in the season too. He’s a pretty big guy but he’s a good skater.”

Moen is enjoying this season after struggling to stay in the lineup last season.

As a rookie with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2003-04, the winger played in all 82 regular-season games. After being traded to the Ducks, Moen battled knee and shoulder injuries and dressed in only 39 games as he and since-departed Jeff Friesen shared ice time down the stretch.

“I don’t know it was really a setback,” he said. “Obviously it wasn’t fun. But you learn from it.”

Moen cemented his spot on the checking line alongside Pahlsson and Rob Niedermayer during training camp, and immediately took his game to a level the Ducks didn’t expect.

“I think it’s just confidence,” Niedermayer said. “You get more ice time and you get to feel a little more comfortable out there. That’s when your game starts taking off.”

Not one to toss around words of praise, Coach Randy Carlyle recently offered just that for the winger, who makes the league minimum of $450,000.

“We knew he was a big, strong kid that would work extremely hard,” Carlyle said. “You never ever have to challenge Travis Moen’s work ethic or character.”

Carlyle also knows that, in Moen, he has a player who doesn’t mind getting dirty, even during the off-season.

Each summer, Moen returns to Stewart Valley to work daily on the family’s 3,000-acre farm that his brother Brant runs year-round. The farm has been in the family for four generations. And if it’s up to Moen, it’ll stay that way for generations more.

“I rode the tractor when I was 3, maybe 4 years old,” Moen recalled. “I started doing work at 6 or 7 and helped out a little bit with the chores and stuff. Started driving machinery at probably 11 or 12. It’s something I go back and enjoy doing. You just get a family feeling on the farm.”

All that work has paid off, whether on the ice or in the fields. The Ducks’ No. 32 credits his work ethic to his father, Brian, who died of a heart attack five years ago.

“He was always pushing me to be better,” Moen said. “He really instilled in me the need to work hard to get to wherever you want to go.”

Like the Stanley Cup finals.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com