Giguere Likes What He Sees From the Defense

As much as the Ducks hope their 2-1 victory Saturday at Vancouver will be a springboard to better things, they know they’ve stood on as many springboards as Greg Louganis and have done a belly-flop each time.

“A turnaround,” Coach Mike Babcock said, “would be after a 10-game win streak.”

Ten-game win streaks being rare in these days of parity -- the longest winning streak this season was eight, by Toronto, from Nov. 22 through Dec. 6 -- the Ducks will have to chip away and improve to the point where they win some of the one-goal decisions they’ve been losing.

That’s why it was important for them to get more than a moral victory at Vancouver and for Jean-Sebastien Giguere to be the confident, calm goaltender he was last spring, when his pads were where opponents’ shots went to die.

Giguere, who has won consecutive games only once this season, during a three-game winning streak Nov. 9, 12 and 16, said his focus was the sharpest it has been “since the last maybe, couple of weeks.” He added, “We blocked a lot of shots in front of the net. We paid the price. There was always five guys back in our zone. It was good to see that. This is how we’re going to win, we play good defense, we get some chances in, we’re going to win tight games like that.”

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The Ducks play five of their next six at home, where they’re 0-2-3 in their last five games.... Babcock gave the team a day off Sunday, which was planned even before flight delays and customs prevented them from returning to the Arrowhead Pond until about 3 a.m. Sunday. They were scheduled to return to the ice this morning for a brief skate.

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TONIGHT

vs. Calgary, 5

Fox Sports Net 2

Site -- Arrowhead Pond.

Radio -- XPRS (1090)

Records -- Ducks 14-20-7-5, Flames 22-15-4-3.

Record vs. Flames (2002-03) -- 2-1-1-0.

Update -- Exceptional goaltending from Miikka Kiprusoff and the grittiness that’s a trademark of Coach/General Manager Darryl Sutter’s teams have kept the Flames in the top eight in the West, but injuries have had an impact. Kiprusoff has been sidelined by a knee injury; and Jarome Iginla, who leads the team with 18 goals, injured his left ankle Saturday while trying to beat Dallas defenseman Richard Matvichuk to the puck and negate an icing call. He is considered day to day.