Ducks are in a fighting mood

Any team that has 65 fighting majors and logged 1,315 penalty minutes has to assume that they'll face some teams that won't like being pushed around.

But the Ducks also believe that there's a line to be drawn in a physical hockey game and they felt the Chicago Blackhawks crossed it in a 3-0 loss Wednesday night at the United Center.

George Parros and Sean O'Donnell were among a few players who took exception to some Blackhawks, in particular enforcer Ben Eager, taking shots at captain Chris Pronger in his first game since breaking his jaw.

Pronger wore a football-style mask to protect the jaw that was broken against the same Blackhawks on Feb. 24 in Anaheim.

"It's pretty classless to go after a guy when he's hurt like that," Parros said, speaking about Eager. "You have to expect something back. . . . There were a few guys taking advantage of his injury.

"There's a code of conduct out there to some extent. You finish your check and then you don't ease up on him. Throwing a couple of extra shots with hands to the face is pretty low."

Parros jumped Eager and got an instigator penalty when the Blackhawks winger didn't drop his gloves. O'Donnell then fought Chicago defenseman James Wisniewski, with both picking up game misconduct penalties when the referees were cleaning up after the Parros-Eager bout.

"Some of their guys seemed to be a little braver with Chris and his thing on his jaw and they took a couple of shots at him there," O'Donnell said. "We kind of took exception to that."

The Ducks say they have no problem with teams being physical with them.

"We feel like we play hard," O'Donnell said. "We finish our checks and we expect other teams to do the same. And when they do, that's part of the game.

"Maybe there was disagreement in our minds. We felt like they were taking a couple of liberties at a guy who was prone. There's an injury. We wanted to stand up for that and stand up for a teammate."

Pronger appreciated the response.

"They did a great job," he said. "George comes in and takes care of business. We're able to kill off penalties like that. It's something that makes us stronger and brings us together."

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With Pronger returning to the lineup after sitting out two games, newly acquired Marc-Andre Bergeron was a healthy scratch after playing in his first two games with the team.