Their legs were leaden and their sparkplug was missing after James Wisniewski took a puck to the chest and was taken to a hospital for precautionary tests, but the Ducks held on to defeat the Detroit Red Wings, 2-1, Tuesday at the Honda Center and took a 2-1 lead in the teams' second-round playoff series.
An apparent tying goal for Detroit was waved off by referee Brad Watson with 1:04 to play. Much to the dismay of the Red Wings' bench, Watson ruled that the whistle had blown before Marian Hossa poked the puck over the goal line.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, May 07, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Hockey: An article in Wednesday's Sports section about the NHL playoffs said that Ducks defenseman James Wisniewski, after being hit by a puck, was taken to the UCI Medical Center in Irvine. He was taken to the UCI facility in Orange.
"It was a little lucky for us," goalie Jonas Hiller said, "but you have to fight to be lucky, and everyone in here fought."
The teams pushed and shoved at the whistle, the spillover of the tension of a close and punishing game. Hiller stopped 45 shots, again stellar against a potent Red Wings barrage.
Game 4 will be played Thursday, also at the Honda Center.
Wisniewski, whose physical play and outgoing personality have revived the Ducks since they acquired him from Chicago just before the trade deadline, was taken to UCI Medical Center in Irvine for precautionary reasons after he was struck in the chest by a shot in the second period.
He appeared wobbly after the shot by Pavel Datsyuk struck him, but he got back into the play. A few seconds later he was elbowed in the head by Tomas Holmstrom and quickly sank to the ice on all fours, clearly in distress.
Medical personnel quickly came to his aid and put him onto a gurney. He sat up, which the crowd took as an encouraging sign, but he was grimacing as he was taken off for further examination and treatment.
That triggered memories of a frightening moment that occurred during the 1998 playoffs, when Chris Pronger -- then with St. Louis -- was struck in the chest by a puck during a game against Detroit and suffered an incident of heart arrhythmia. Pronger returned a few days later, and the Ducks were left to hope that Wisniewski had also avoided anything more serious than a scare.
"It's a scary situation, having gone through it," Pronger said. "You could see he was hurt and trying to catch his breath."
The Ducks had built a 2-0 lead on goals by Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer, before Henrik Zetterberg cut that to 2-1 at 14:20 of the second period.
The Ducks' first goal stemmed from a lost faceoff, oddly enough.
