Ducks get some help to beat Detroit

DETROIT -- Maybe the Ducks and Detroit Red Wings should just cut to the rematch of the Western Conference finals and save everyone the trouble of playing out what’s left of the regular season.

If only the rest of the NHL would go along with it.

The last of four meetings during the 82-game schedule sure seemed to serve as a prelude to a possible Stanley Cup playoff showdown as a little controversy added spice to the budding rivalry.

The Ducks prevailed, 3-2, on Sunday, getting more contributions from the unexpected and a little help from referee Dan O’Halloran’s waving off a potential tying goal by Detroit in the final minute in front of a sellout crowd at Joe Louis Arena.

In the immediate, the Ducks (31-22-7) have reversed field on their season-long trip with four consecutive wins after starting out with losses at Minnesota, St. Louis and Philadelphia. They finish the trip Tuesday at Colorado.

“It’s a good feeling, obviously,” said defenseman Mathieu Schneider, who had a goal and an assist against the team with which he spent his last three seasons. “The more important thing is keeping the streak going for us.

“It started out looking like a pretty bad road trip, but we’ve turned it around here. These are important points for us, much more important for us than for them at this point.”

But the big picture is tempting to look at.

The teams met in a thrilling six-game series last season the Ducks won, catapulting them to their first championship and denying the Red Wings a shot at their 11th Cup.

Despite a three-game losing streak, Detroit (41-12-5) is setting the standard with an NHL-best 87 points, which is 14 more than the closest team.

But it’s the Ducks who are trying to repeat as champions for the first time since the Red Wings did it a decade ago.

“They dominated the league since the beginning of the season,” Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “You’d be crazy not to think that if you want to go through the West in the playoffs, you might possibly have to go through the Red Wings.”

The Ducks delivered a mental note by earning a split of the four regular-season meetings. Rookie Ryan Carter scored his third NHL goal in the last two games, and defenseman Kent Huskins had a highlight-reel goal in addition to Schneider’s tally that erased a 1-0 deficit.

Carter tied the game when he banged a bad-angle shot off Red Wings goaltender Chris Osgood in the first. Schneider gave them the lead in the second after Chris Kunitz kept the play alive by poking the puck away from Osgood before the goalie could secure it.

Huskins made the game’s biggest play when he took the puck from Schneider deep in his own end and went coast to coast, beating Detroit defensemen Brian Rafalski and Brett Lebda before he put a backhand shot into the net.

After power-play goals from Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen, the Red Wings appeared to tie it on a shot by Nicklas Lidstrom with 40.7 seconds left in regulation after Osgood was pulled to create a six-on-four advantage.

O’Halloran waved the apparent score off, ruling there was incidental contact between Detroit winger Tomas Holmstrom and Giguere even though replays appeared to show the contact was minimal.

“It’s a tough call for the referee,” said Giguere, who made 27 saves. “A lot of times, they don’t call those penalties like that. It took a lot of guts to call that.”

Said Carlyle: “Once I saw the referee wave it off, I just said, ‘Thank you.’ ”

The feeling afterward was that there will more important battles down the line.

“Odds are if we want to make it back to the finals, Detroit’s going to be in the path,” Schneider said.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com