With the final round of this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs contested between the high-flying Edmonton Oilers and tenacious Florida Panthers just around the corner, it seems appropriate to recall the greatest night in Anaheim Ducks history: June 6, 2007. The night, of course, when Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Teemu Selanne, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and company obliterated the Ottawa Senators 6-2 in Game 5 to seal their first championship in franchise history. Let’s look back at the game that sealed a historic night for California hockey and etched the Ducks into the history books.
The Series Was Largely All Ducks to This Point
The Ducks held a 3-1 series advantage heading into their home-ice clinching scenario, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn’t think they were going to wrap up the series in Game 5. After all, they controlled the play for the first four games, and only got themselves in real trouble when they took penalties. It was a consistent theme for the Ducks that entire season, that it was only them that could get in the way of their end goal. They were often undisciplined, but they had the requisite skill in all phases of the game to overcome it.
The first four games of the series were a microcosm of the regular season, mostly from the standpoint that everyone was contributing. Samuel Pahlsson, Rob Niedermayer, and Travis Moen, perhaps one of the best checking lines of their generation, certainly the best in Ducks history, outworked and outclassed the Senators’ top players. Selanne and Andy McDonald were the high-flying skillful forwards they were all season long, and made key contributions in Games 1 and 4. Not to be outdone, Getzlaf, Perry, and Dustin Penner all made their impact felt as skilled, exuberant power forwards in each game.
Outside of Game 3, the Senators could not solve the puzzle presented by the Ducks all season and playoffs: who do you try to stop when nine of the 12 forwards, and four of the six defensemen could beat you any given night? Let us not forget, of course, that if you managed to solve that puzzle, you then had to figure out how to beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere in net, who had stymied the likes of Markus Naslund, Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Niklas Lidstrom, and others on his march to the Stanley Cup Final.
Ducks Started Game 5 Fast and Never Looked Back
An early power play opportunity gave the Ducks a great chance to put pressure on the Senators, and they took advantage. McDonald fired a shot that ricocheted off a defender and past Ray Emery, and the Ducks were up 1-0 less than five minutes into the first period. Rob Niedermayer drove the net late in the period, causing a scramble, and the puck trickled in yet again and the Ducks took a 2-0 lead into the intermission. Daniel Alfredsson carried the Senators on his back with a two-goal effort in the second period, but the Ducks kept pace and got two of their own in the middle frame, from Moen and Francois Beauchemin, who unleashed an absolute missile with 90 seconds left in the period to give the Ducks all the momentum they needed to get the job done. The game was effectively over at this point.
Moen sealed his excellent playoff with a second goal in the third period, and Perry made his mark on the game like a true sniper does, with a seeing-eye slapshot placed perfectly on the blocker side to beat Emery. The Ducks chipped away at the will of the Senators all series and suffocated them with their pressure and unique blend of skill and physicality. They were relentless in their pursuit of pucks and never passed on an opportunity to finish a check. On one shift, you had to deal with the speed of Selanne and McDonald, then the tenacity of Pahlsson, Niedermayer, and Moen the next. If that wasn’t enough, then it was Getzlaf, Perry, and Penner coming for you, who were puck-hungry menaces at the ripe ages of 21, 21, and 24, respectively. The Ducks were impossible to deal with when they were at the top of their game, and they were in the series-clinching Game 5.
A Fleet of Legends Net Their First Stanley Cup
Scott Niedermayer, perhaps the Ducks’ greatest free-agent acquisition, was the ultimate captain for a team that included a litany of first-ballot Hall-of-Famers. The Cup win was his fourth, but it was the first for his brother Rob, Selanne, Giguere, and Pronger. Players that put in the hard miles, overcame injuries, and endured playoff heartbreaks. From day one, these players led the Ducks with urgency and paved the way for a season yet to be replicated by the franchise. The current assembly of Ducks, however, has goals of reaching the pinnacle someday.
World-Class Roster Delivered a Memorable World-Class Performance
The Ducks’ championship run essentially confirmed what many in the hockey world already knew about this team, which was that from start to finish, they were in a class of their own. Their 2006 offseason acquisition of Pronger, after previously losing to him in the 2006 Western Conference Final, truly made it a Stanley Cup or bust season in Anaheim. The Red Wings may have had the better regular season and boasted a similarly loaded roster, talent-wise, yet the Ducks were deeper with more elite talent in each phase of the game and the Stanley Cup was theirs to lose.
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The win was significant on a number of levels. Big picture, it was the first championship won by a Southern California franchise, and the first team based in the Pacific time zone to win a championship (the Los Angeles Kings and Vegas Golden Knights, of course, have since joined them). From the perspective of the franchise, the win was sweet redemption after previous deep playoff runs in 2003 and 2006 ended in heartbreak. It also began an era that included years of Pacific Division titles and playoff appearances led by Niedermayer, Selanne, Getzlaf, and Perry. The Ducks have not won since, and still appear a way off, but the intelligent and thoughtful roster construction in adherence with the gameplay of the time, and emphasis on building out all three phases of the game serves as a model for success for years to come.
