Ducks No Match for the Oilers, 6-3

It was the touch of a stick on a leg pad, but it was enough to set off Jean-Sebastien Giguere and submarine the rest of the Mighty Ducks on Wednesday night.

Against the team they are trying to catch for the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference, the Ducks buried themselves under the weight of bad penalties in the third period and the Edmonton Oilers took advantage with four goals to rally for a 6-3 victory at the Arrowhead Pond.

Chris Pronger broke a tie with consecutive power-play goals on a two-man advantage as Edmonton remained composed while the undisciplined Ducks lost their composure in falling six points behind the Oilers.

Giguere, who gave up the goals, also received two roughing calls -- a tripping penalty and a 10-minute misconduct in a 28-second span of the third -- that finalized the Ducks’ downfall.

“I’ve never seen a guy like that implode at that level in a game this meaningful for their team,” Edmonton Coach Craig MacTavish said.

Oiler forward Ryan Smyth was the target of Giguere’s outburst after Smyth appeared to put his stick on the goaltender’s pad in the crease as Pronger was teeing up a slapshot with the Ducks already down two men.

Giguere couldn’t get his leg over in time to block the shot, which gave Edmonton a 4-3 lead, but it didn’t stop him from rushing after Smyth and putting his glove up in the forward’s face.

The resulting roughing penalty meant another five-on-three advantage, and the Oilers needed only 19 seconds to pad the lead on another booming slapshot from Pronger. Shawn Horcoff added an empty-net goal.

Afterward, Giguere was apologetic for his display of anger.

“I was upset for more than one reason,” he said, “but it’s unacceptable. I can’t react like that. Sometimes it’s unfortunate to be a goalie. It’s not like you can go out and fight and bodycheck somebody. You’ve got to keep your cool.”

It was the Ducks’ first regulation loss since Jan. 7 at Minnesota, but it was a disheartening loss because they were seemingly in control after Teemu Selanne scored his second goal for a 3-1 lead in the second period.

Duck captain Scott Niedermayer had a problem with the officiating and accused the Oilers’ Ales Hemsky of diving.

“We got the short end of the stick on a lot of calls,” he said. “[Vishnevski] got one and [Corey] Perry got punched in the head twice. I think that’s a penalty. And then Vish takes a five-minute.

“We’re trying to kill a five-minute major and I get a penalty for a cross check. If I cross-checked a player that hard, for sure everyone standing right here would have fallen down. [Hemsky] hit the ice and stayed down for a while.”

Duck Coach Randy Carlyle rushed to take the blame for the third-period collapse.

“When the team loses focus like that, it’s the coach’s responsibility,” Carlyle said. “I could have called a timeout earlier and I could have pulled Giguere.”