Ducks Use Speed Bumps to Beat Canucks

By ROBYN NORWOOD

Jan. 13, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

VANCOUVER, Canada — Speed thrills, but it also kills.

The Mighty Ducks defeated Vancouver, 3-2, Sunday at GM Place by not succumbing to the temptation that dangles so tantalizingly in every game against the Canucks.

Instead of the pell-mell, up-and-down game they so often have been burned by, the Ducks played tighter hockey, controlling the game and limiting Vancouver to 23 shots.

By doing that, the Ducks held the high-test tandem of Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny without a point, which goes a long way toward beating the Canucks.

“That’s been pretty tough for us in the past,” Coach Ron Wilson said.

If it wasn’t clear that this game hinged on speed, consider the nicknames. It was Bure, the Russian Rocket, against Teemu Selanne, the Finnish Flash.

Selanne and Paul Kariya, the Ducks’ other skater with blazing speed, won out, each scoring a goal.

Selanne scored his 25th of the season and tied a Duck record by scoring a goal for a fifth consecutive game. Kariya’s goal, his 16th, was the eventual game-winner, coming on a power play at 10:12 of the second period. It gave him four goals in the last two games after his first NHL hat trick Friday against Buffalo.

Linemate Steve Rucchin assisted on both goals and has seven points over the last three games.

Bure, Mogilny, Selanne and Kariya were often on the ice at the same time.

“We know that when that happens, if we are patient and play smart defensively, we’ll get our chances, because they want goals too,” Selanne said.

“Some guys, like Bure, they don’t really want to backcheck,” he said with a sly smile, because he is sometimes one of those guys. “You know you can get chances, three on two, two on one.”

Only last Monday, Vancouver beat the Ducks, 5-1, in Anaheim. Bure had two goals, including an embarrassing two-on-none short-handed score that he laughed wildly about on the ice.

The Ducks didn’t leave goalie Guy Hebert exposed like that this time.

“This is definitely a nice little payback. We didn’t play very well that game,” Hebert said. “The last two games, I haven’t faced that many shots. Guys are blocking shots, and we’re spending more time in our opponents’ zone, which means there’s less time in our own end.”

Hebert held off the Canucks the entire third period, including a close call when he stopped Martin Gelinas’ rebound on the goal line, and a break when Donald Brashear missed wide from close range.

The score was tied, 1-1, early in the second period after goals by the Ducks’ Brian Bellows--on a power play--and Vancouver’s Mark Wotton, on a shot that deflected in off the Ducks’ Jason Marshall.

Selanne regained the lead for the Ducks at 6:51 of the second, but a little more than two minutes later the score was tied again after Kariya tried a long pass in the neutral zone with the Ducks on a power play.

Leif Rohlin intercepted the puck and sent former Duck Mike Sillinger in on a short-handed breakaway. Sillinger put the puck in the top of the net for his 10th goal of the season and his second against the Ducks in less than a week.

Kariya made amends, though, when he scored the eventual game-winner, putting a rebound past Kirk McLean from the corner of the net.

“We played well defensively,” Kariya said. “I just think we played a smarter game.”