On Tuesday the Ducks played the New York Islanders. Teemu Selanne joined the line up for the first time and it was a much-needed boost. The Ducks finally broke their scoreless streak, which was just shy of 180 minutes, on a power play goal set up by Selanne and Chris Pronger. Scott Niedermayer finally broke the drought and even strength goals by Todd Marchant and Doug Weight followed. Jean-Sebastien Giguere earned his second shut out in the 3-0 win, even though the first in St. Louis was only a technical shut out with the loss in the shootout. The Islanders were not very good and the building was not even half full. When asked how he felt after his first game back, Selanne answered, "Awesome, but it wasn’t very easy. Missing that much time and playing my first game back, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But obviously the team played very well and it was a good win. You have to take baby steps to go forward and this was one of them. I got tired easily, but I knew I had to get to this next level of playing games." Selanne would finish the week with 11 shots on goal in four games, with two assists.

Thursday, the Ducks faced the New York Rangers, a much livelier building that was full to capacity. The fourth line of Brian Sutherby, Brad May and George Parros played well for the Ducks and Sutherby and Parros assisted in the first goal of the game by Mathieu Schneider. Coach Randy Carlyle commented that, “They were the spark plug. When you have players that normally don’t play huge minutes make a contribution, everybody feels good for them on the bench, and that’s a huge positive for those players.” The Rangers tied it up in the second period and kept pressuring Giguere. During one sequence, Schneider managed to chip the puck out, giving Corey Perry and Brad May a two on one breakaway. Perry scored what he called a “lucky bounce.” 1:27 later, Chris Kunitz converted on the Ducks first power play, again with an assist to Selanne and Pronger. Todd Bertuzzi sealed things up with another two on one breakaway goal that got past Henrik Lundqvist and the Ducks walked out with another two points.

On Friday, the Ducks paid their first visit to Prudential Center, new home of the New Jersey Devils. Rookie Ryan Carter had played 32 games with the Ducks, four of them in the playoffs last spring. He finally got his first (and second) goal against Martin Brodeur. “I’ve had lots of opportunities and plenty of good ones, but the puck just hasn’t found the back of the net,” Carter commented. “Big time play,” was coach Randy Carlyle’s assessment. “He’s a kid that’s probably surpassed everybody’s expectations. We’re very, very pleased with his progression.” The second goal was highlight quality and stood up as the game winner for the Ducks in their 2-1 win. Jay Pandolfo scored for the New Jersey Devils. Jonas Hiller earned the win stopping 34 shots.

On Sunday, the Ducks played against Detroit in NBC’s “Game of the Week.” They took a three game winning streak to match up with Detroit’s two game losing streak. The Ducks prevailed at the Joe Louis Arena for only the third time in franchise history, the last win coming in March 2002. The Ducks got scoring from Ryan Carter, Mathieu Schneider and Kent Huskins. Huskins’ game winner came as a result of some nice maneuvering around three Red Wings. “We’ve seen him do that before and not score,” Carlyle said. “Now he finally got rewarded. That’s a big-league play. That was a big goal for our hockey club.” The Red Wings scored both goals on the power play courtesy of Pavel Datsyuk and Johan Franzen. The Ducks hung on and lucked out when referee Dan O’Halloran ruled incidental contact between Giguere and Tomas Holmstrom. It occurred just as the potentially game tying goal from Nicklas Lidstrom went into the net with just :40.7 seconds left. “It’s a tough call for the referee,” said Giguere. “A lot of times, they don’t call those penalties like that. It took a lot of guts to call that.” The Ducks won, 3-2.

The Ducks visited the White House on Wednesday. They were given a personal tour of the White House and were honored for their Stanley Cup championship by President Bush in a ceremony. The Ducks presented the President with a jersey bearing his name and “07” on the back. All the players seemed in awe of the experience, especially meeting the President. “It's my second time here, but obviously it's a neat thing," Scott Niedermayer said. “The President of the United States is a great person to meet and it's nice to be recognized by him for winning the Stanley Cup. It was a great experience to see what it's all about here."

Last week the power play was non-existent. This week the Ducks found their scoring ability, at both even strength and with the man advantage. They were 2 for 12 on the week. The stats remained at 16.1%, and they fell to 24th in the league. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but this stat has to improve.

The penalty kill did well this week until Detroit. The Ducks killed 16 of 18 penalties over the past four games. The numbers continued to increase to 82%, moving up three places to 14th place overall.

The Ducks have 69 points with a 31-22-7 record. They remain 3rd in the Pacific Division, tied with San Jose and four points behind division leading Dallas. The Sharks still have five games in hand and Dallas has one game in hand. The Ducks remain 5th overall in the Western Conference and need to continue their winning ways.

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2008 Western Hockey Network