Ducks Generate a Buzz

The Arrowhead Pond crackled with energy Friday. It was Boo Paul Kariya Night, after all, and the fans’ lingering anger over the former Mighty Duck captain’s off-season departure for the Colorado Avalanche was difficult to miss.

Duly inspired by a boisterous sellout crowd of 17,174, the Ducks and Avalanche went at each other as if something more than a midseason victory was at stake. There were heavy hits all around the ice, some of them even legal. There were magnificent periods of flash and creativity that had the fans on the edge of their seats.

The Ducks won in overtime, 4-3, on Niclas Havelid’s power-play goal 3 minutes 39 seconds into the five-minute extra period. They rallied to tie the score on Sergei Fedorov’s backhander in the final minute of regulation.

“There was definitely a buzz in the air,” said Steve Rucchin, the Ducks’ new captain, when someone asked if the game had the atmosphere of a Stanley Cup playoff game. “It was pretty intense right from the start. I know that it was a great time for us to play against a team like this. Guys were skating hard. Guys were hitting.”

By game’s end, Kariya’s return to the arena he called home for nine seasons, was something of an afterthought. He was booed without mercy each time he touched the puck as well as when his name was announced for assisting on third-period goals by Steve Konowalchuk and Joe Sakic.

The fans also thundered their approval after Fedorov’s tying goal with 46 seconds left in regulation, after goalie Martin Gerber had gone to the bench in favor of an extra skater, and bellowed even louder when Havelid ripped a slap shot past David Aebischer for the game-winner in overtime.

“It’s a four-on-three,” Havelid said of the man-advantage situation facing the Ducks after Colorado’s Martin Skoula was penalized for hooking Petr Sykora. “We wanted Sergei to shoot, but they took him away. When the puck came to me, I closed my eyes and got as much as I could get behind it.”

Aebischer, who stopped Sykora twice on breakaways, including moments before Skoula’s obstruction hooking penalty, didn’t appear to have a clear view of Havelid’s shot from the top of the right faceoff circle. Sykora and Fedorov assisted on Havelid’s third goal of the season, all of which have been game-winners.

The Ducks said they needed to win their last five games before the All-Star break next week if they hoped to rejoin a playoff race that seemed to have passed them by, and after an overtime loss Wednesday to the Kings that earned them a point and an overtime victory Friday, they’re not far off their goal.

However, the Ducks are still mired in 13th place in the Western Conference standings, 11 points behind the eighth-place Calgary Flames.

The Ducks play at Calgary on Sunday, then at Edmonton on Monday before returning to the Pond to play Carolina on Wednesday.

Despite their lowly station, the Ducks had the look of a desperate team Friday. Rucchin punched in a power-play goal, off a centering pass from Fedorov, that gave the Ducks a 2-1 second-period lead. Sykora darted and danced with the puck, moving this way and that, leaving Colorado players in his wake while setting up two goals.

And Vaclav Prospal had a goal and two assists, giving him seven goals and 10 points in the last seven games.

All of which seemed to indicate a beating pulse beneath those eggplant and jade uniforms. General Manager Bryan Murray seemed bent on giving his team a jolt of new energy, calling up Chris Armstrong and Casey Hankinson from the team’s minor-league affiliate at Cincinnati and sending struggling second-year player Stanislav Chistov to the farm club.

“I think we’re still trying to win games,” Murray said before the game.

“Realistically, we have to win the majority of our games [to rally into a playoff spot]. What it might do, if we win two or three games, then all of a sudden everybody’s really going. We’re not throwing a flag up.”