(MENAFN- Gulf Times) As they trudged back to their locker room after the third period, the Anaheim Ducks were angry at themselves for being in a position they had urgently wanted to avoid.
Chicago center Jonathan Toews personally wiped out a two-goal lead the Ducks had built in a wild, back-and-forth game, scoring twice in the final 1 minute 50 seconds to send Game 5 of the Western Conference finals to overtime. It's a place the Ducks had been twice before in this series and had departed in defeat both times, and they didn't want to go there again.
"We were mad coming in here," centre Ryan Kesler said. "When this team gets mad we make strides on the ice."
They got mad and then did better than get even, clawing out a 5-4 overtime victory that put them within one win of their first Stanley Cup Final berth since their 2007 championship season.
"Ducks hockey _ it's not for the faint of heart," Kesler said with a weary smile. "We like to make things interesting in here."
Sometimes too interesting, as in their inability to hold leads of 3-0 and 4-2 Monday, and their tendency to become sloppy when they've built a big lead. But they were aggressive when sudden-death play began, putting together several strong shifts before they took off on a counterattack after Chicago's Bryan Bickell didn't get the puck deep into the Ducks' zone. Jakob Silfverberg made a fine pass to Kesler, whose initial shot was stopped, but Matt Beleskey was there to convert the rebound a mere 45 seconds into overtime.
Sudden-death play was short and, for the Ducks, very sweet, after enduring losses in triple overtime in Game 2 and double overtime in Game 4.
"We've played a lot of overtime and lost. And tonight we just needed to win, as simple as that," left wing Andrew Cogliano said. "I think guys knew that it was tonight or it would have been a pretty devastating loss, to be honest. That was as big as it gets for us. We needed that win."
They got it despite a spectacular effort by Toews, who scored twice after goaltender Corey Crawford was replaced by an extra player. "He's a good player," Kesler said of Toews. "Skilled player. Makes plays. We got running around too much there and left him wide open."
Not the best guy to leave wide open, though his second goal was on a
sharply angled shot from the goal line that caromed in off the leg of Ducks goaltender Frederik Andersen.
"Obviously we don't want to give up a lead, but it's playoff hockey. It happens," Kesler said. "The thing is we got mad and we came in here and finished it off."
The key is that they channelled their anger in the right direction, using it for energy and motivation instead of wallowing in self-pity. Coach Bruce Boudreau led them the right way with the right words of advice.
"We said it was our turn. Don't be upset and hang your heads. Get angry," Boudreau said afterward. "Get really mad because we threw it away a little bit. Just come back and do what you did in the first period. Things will work out."
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