Overtime finish suits Ducks fine ... again

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Martin Brodeur showed he's not perfect, but the Anaheim Mighty Ducks still are in playoff overtime -- and that's why they're still alive in the Stanley Cup finals.

Ruslan Salei scored off Adam Oates' faceoff win at 6:59 into overtime and the Mighty Ducks, taking advantage of one of the biggest misplays of Brodeur's career, beat the New Jersey Devils 3-2 in Game 3 Saturday night.

Oates fed the puck off the faceoff to Salei at the top of the slot, and Brodeur barely reacted to his one-timer as the Mighty Ducks improved to 6-0 in playoff overtimes. The Devils are 2-2.

It was essentially a must-win game for the Ducks, who played with the desperation expected of a team that trailed 2-0 in the series and almost certainly would have had no chance to raise the cup had it lost.

Salei's goal was his second of the playoffs and, no doubt, the biggest of his career.

Game 4 will be Monday night, when the Devils can either take a commanding 3-1 lead or the Mighty Ducks will tie a series they seemed out of following two dominating Devils wins in New Jersey.

Overtime playoff wins have largely been responsible for Anaheim's remarkable playoff run, which began with three consecutive series-opening overtime victories.

Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere has been unbeatable in overtime, with an NHL-record overtime scoreless streak of 166 minutes, 4 seconds. He broke Patrick Roy's record of 162:56 early in the overtime.

Giguere turned aside 29 of 31 shots in by far his best game of the finals.

The Devils trailed 2-1 in the second after Brodeur lost his stick and couldn't defend Sandis Ozolinsh's seemingly harmless shot as it trickled in from the blue line.

But the Devils tied it at 2 when Scott Gomez deflected Grant Marshall's wrister from above the right circle past Giguere at 9:11 of the third. Gomez has two goals in the finals after scoring only once in 16 games.

That might have won it had Brodeur not made a grievous mistake on a play that couldn't have been more routine.

Only 45 seconds after the Devils' Patrik Elias tied it at 1, Giguere fed the puck up ice to Ozolinsh who, draped by two Devils, pushed it toward the net.

Brodeur, positioned at the left of the crease, began to scramble over to play the puck, only to drop his stick. With Brodeur unable to defend, the puck trickled into the side of the net as the goalie dropped to his knees, raising his hand to his head in disbelief.

The maddening misplay at 14:47 of the second came slightly more than 11 minutes after Ozolinsh set up Anaheim's first goal of the series, by the infrequently used Marc Chouinard. That goal at 3:39 of the second ended Brodeur's scoreless streak of 143 minutes, 39 seconds.