Mighty Ducks Pull Plug on Red Wing Power Play

ANAHEIM — The Mighty Ducks got it all wrong right from the start Wednesday against the Detroit Red Wings.

They wanted to stay out of the penalty box and avoid dealing with the Red Wings’ standout power-play unit. So often in the past, the Red Wings had hammered the Ducks with early power-play goals.

Wednesday night, the Ducks fell into the same old trap and the Red Wings seemed ready to pounce.

But a funny thing happened on the way to another Detroit victory at the Pond. The Ducks managed to fend off the powerful Red Wings, recording a 2-1 victory.

Instead of caving in, the Ducks pressured the Red Wings, suffocating them and frustrating them with strong penalty killing.

Five times Detroit went on the power play.

Five times the Red Wings came up empty.

There were plenty of other reasons the Ducks extended their franchise-record unbeaten streak to nine games and stopped Detroit’s at 11. But shutting out the Red Wing power play, fifth-best in the NHL before Wednesday’s games, was crucial.

“The No. 1 thing is our goaltending,” Duck Coach Ron Wilson said, referring to Guy Hebert. “Sometimes your goaltender is your best penalty-killer.

“No. 2, we’ve been aggressive on the penalty kill, even more so because they [the penalty-killing unit] know with Guy behind them he’s not going to give up a bad goal.”

Instead of allowing Red Wing Brendan Shanahan, Sergei Fedorov and Steve Yzerman time to set up and pick their spots from point-blank range, the Ducks swarmed.

They tipped away passes. They badgered the puck carrier. They gave up mostly perimeter shots that Hebert easily stopped.

“We denied them time and space. We hurried them,” Wilson said. “They had maybe one or two scoring chances on the power play. The defensemen did a great job down low pressuring their forwards. They didn’t have time to run the types of plays they usually like to run.”

And the Ducks were a bit fortunate too.

Detroit had two-man advantages in the first and second periods, but neither was for a lengthy stretch and the Ducks managed to keep the Red Wings from clicking.

By game’s end, Hebert had stopped 38 of 39 shots. The only one that eluded him came on Fedorov’s spectacular drive to the net at 9:27 of the second period.

“Guy is seeing a lot of pucks,” defenseman Bobby Dollas said. “But if he sees them, he’s going to stop them. The penalty killers have got to be able to block a shot. Or take one off the body. You give them the long shots. Guy is going to stop those. The shots are so tight that the defensemen have to stop.”

Added right wing Teemu Selanne: “We played it smart. They can be in the corners. They can’t score from there. If they do it’s Guy’s fault. We really want to help him.

“Against Detroit, you can’t start a scoring race. You have to play well defensively and hope Guy can stop all their shots.

“The power play and the penalty kill are a really important part of our game at this time of the season.”