Ducks look to clip Wings

By Eric Stephens

May 8, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

An old familiar playoff foe will greet the Ducks in the Western Conference finals.

The top-seeded Detroit Red Wings advanced to the third round for the first time in four seasons by defeating the host San Jose Sharks, 2-0, in Game 6 on Monday night.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. May 9, 2007 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 09, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 57 words Type of Material: Correction
Hockey: In Tuesday’s Sports section, an article on the Detroit Red Wings’ 2-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks said it was goaltender Dominik Hasek’s seventh playoff shutout in his career. It was his 13th. The article also said Detroit’s Brett Lebda was still out with an injury. In fact, he had returned to action that night.

It will be the fourth time that the Ducks and Red Wings have played each other in the postseason. The previous meetings ended in four-game sweeps, with Detroit winning in 1997 and 1999 and the Ducks winning a first-round series in 2003.

Game 1 is Friday night in Detroit.

The Ducks and Red Wings split the four games they played in the regular season, with each team winning at home. Both teams go into the series after strong performances in eliminating their semifinal opponents.

“When you get into the conference finals, you don’t get good matchups,” Ducks General Manager Brian Burke said. “You get a hard matchup no matter what when you get in that third round.”

The Red Wings, he said, “have no glaring holes. They’re strong up front and strong on defense. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

In finishing off the Sharks, Detroit put all of that on display.

Despite playing without injured defensemen Mathieu Schneider, Niklas Kronwall and Brett Lebda, the Red Wings made Mikael Samuelsson’s two first-period goals stand up as Dominik Hasek made 28 saves for his seventh career playoff shutout.

The Red Wings had to rally from deficits in their other three victories in the series, but Samuelsson’s first goal, a backhand past Evgeni Nabokov on a breakaway, was all they would need.

“We played a great game,” Hasek said. “Finally, we scored the first goal and the second goal. And then we controlled the whole game.”

The Ducks go into the Detroit series a confident bunch after their 2-1 double-overtime win in Game 5 over Vancouver.

They outshot the Canucks, 63-27, in the game and only a terrific performance by goalie Roberto Luongo kept the Canucks close.

“We’re a very confident team when we’re playing the way we can, but we do respect our opponents,” defenseman Sean O’Donnell said.

“Going into Detroit is not one of the easier things to do. But we liked the way we played in Game 5.

“If we keep playing that way, we’ll be all right.”

Standing in the way of the Ducks’ hopes for a Stanley Cup is Mike Babcock, their coach for two seasons who led them to the 2003 finals, where they lost in Game 7 to the New Jersey Devils.

In his second season in Detroit, Babcock has transformed the Red Wings into a more defense-oriented unit that is playing with an edge after last season’s stunning first-round loss to Edmonton.

“They’re very, very tight,” O’Donnell said. “... Maybe they aren’t as aggressive as before, but they still have great puck control.”

Before hiring Randy Carlyle, Burke had offered to keep Babcock as coach for the 2005-06 season, but his offer of one year at the same salary as the reported $400,000 Babcock made in 2003-04 was beneath the multi-year contract Detroit offered.

“We offered the job to Mike and he got a better offer and took it,” Burke said.

“There’s no issue there. Three of the four guys left are guys that coached Anaheim. [San Jose’s] Ron Wilson would have been a story as well. I think we did the right thing with Mike Babcock. But I’m very happy with the coach we brought in.”

Stephens reported from Los Angeles.

eric.stephens@latimes.com

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Ducks vs. Detroit

A closer look at the Western Conference final:

2006-07 head to head (split four games played):

*--* Date Site Result Oct. 18, 2006 at Anaheim Ducks win, 4-1

*--*

* Ryan Getzlaf, Chris Kunitz and Shane O’Brien score power-play goals.

*--* Date Site Result Jan. 2, 2007 at Detroit Detroit wins, 2-1

*--*

* Henrik Zetterberg gets the game winner at 16:51 of the second period.