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ANAHEIM – With a goal and a fight already part of his night, Nick Ritchie only needed an assist to have the so-called Gordie Howe hat trick against the team that “Mr. Hockey” made his legendary nickname for.
So did Corey Perry and Ryan Kesler. The assist never came for any of the three Ducks to complete the trick but there was no disappointment over it. Although, it’s not as if they didn’t want that.
“I’m sure everyone did,” Ritchie said Friday after the Ducks’ 4-2 win over Detroit. “It would have been nice but we’ll take the win over that.”
Ritchie had the first fight and that was the one that seemed to get the Ducks further engaged in another game they had to have in their nightly battle to hang close in the Western Conference playoff race.
Red Wings defenseman Luke Witkowski delivered a hard check on Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler during the first period and Ritchie, who scored the game’s first goal, took note of that.
“That’s something where someone like me can step up to do for the team,” Ritchie said. “It wasn’t anything for me personally. He made a hit. Sometimes in hockey, a big hit is a little bit of an aggressive hit. Not saying it was a dirty hit but there was intent. It was a hard hit.
“Sometimes you got to follow up with a fight and that’s what happened.”
Ducks coach Randy Carlyle didn’t feel Witkowski’s hit was dirty. But he termed it aggressive and was absolutely with fine with Ritchie choosing to step in and respond to a teammate taking the brunt of a solid blow.
The Ducks seemed to feed off the fight. They were all too happy to get into a testy battle with the Red Wings.
“When we get engaged to that level, we can be a very, very dangerous team,” Carlyle said. “And that’s important for us to stay disciplined. It’s not about the extracurricular all the time. It’s about making sure we find a right way to energize ourselves. And if that’s what it takes, then that’s great.
“Nick Ritchie noticed the situation. Addressed it and dealt with it.”
Ritchie’s goal saw his line emerge after a stretch of games where it didn’t generate much offense. Adam Henrique hustled to beat Detroit defenseman Jonathan Ericsson to a puck and got it to Ondrej Kase. Kase immediately passed it into the slot, where Ritchie quickly beat Red Wings goalie Jimmy Howard.
“That’s been the staple of our line,” he said. “If we forecheck well and create turnovers, we’ve been good. When we haven’t done that, we haven’t been very good. And when we do that, we’re good.”
PENALTIES PILE BACK UP
The Ducks had done a good job of limiting their trips to the penalty box. They hadn’t allowed opponents to have more than three power plays in a single game over their previous six contests but let Detroit work with five power plays.
A resurgent penalty kill took care of all five shorthanded situations but Carlyle chafed at the number of minor penalties afterward.
“We seem to be slow learners from the standpoint of the new rules,” Carlyle said. “I thought that a couple of the penalties were of the soft variety. Specifically the last one. I really didn’t think it was a vicious cross check. The game got chippy and obviously the referee saw it differently.
“But we can’t afford to continue to take five and six minors and expect that we’re not going to give up a goal. Again, as always, penalty killing is about hard work and about the ability for people to outwork the opposition’s power play. Your goaltender has to again be your best player in penalty killing.”
