Giguere turns 30 for third straight year

Jean-Sebastien Giguere has reached the 30-win total for the third consecutive season and fourth time in his career. It’s one mark that generally defines a successful season for a goalie.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” Giguere said Monday night after the Ducks’ 3-1 win over Ottawa. “It’s always a benchmark for a goalie. It’s a goal that you set for yourself and try to achieve. Saying that, you can’t do that without having a good team.”

For the season, Giguere is 30-16-5 with a 2.16 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage. The 30-year-old ranks fourth in wins, third in goals against and sixth in save percentage.

“He feels pretty comfortable with where he is in the net,” defenseman Scott Niedermayer said. “He’s making big saves. We need that to win hockey games in this league.”

Giguere credited the players in front of him.

“The last couple of years, we have a core of leadership that’s unbelievable,” he said. “For me, I just follow their lead and a lot of times, it brings me to victory. It’s a whole lot of fun.”

Despite winning 11 of 12, the Ducks haven’t been able to gain ground on first-place Dallas in the Pacific Division or separate themselves from third-place San Jose.

The Stars have won 13 of their last 16 games and the Sharks have won six in a row after an 0-4-1 stretch.

The division champion probably will be seeded second in the Western Conference playoffs.

“You look at the teams we’re trying to catch and stay ahead of, they’ve had an equal amount of success or close to it,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “That’s the life of pro hockey and that’s pro sports.

“When you put yourself in position, you’d like to be able to challenge. We think we’ve done our part, but we’d like to continue doing our part. We’ve got 14 more games left.”

Ottawa Coach Bryan Murray, the former Ducks coach and general manager, had enough of referees Wes McCauley and Kelly Sutherland and got ejected in the third period Monday night as the Senators came unglued in a 3-1 loss to the Ducks.

The Ducks know about being frustrated with the officiating, but they’ve kept their composure after losing it often in the first half of the season.

“We’ve talked about our discipline,” Carlyle said. “We’ve been challenged through the course of the season because we lead the league in fighting majors. It’s deemed . . . that we take undisciplined penalties.

“Yeah, we’re guilty of taking some undisciplined penalties. But I can’t remember a game where I’ve been unhappy with our discipline here in the last 25 to 30 games.”

It was clear that a fair share of the Ducks were less than thrilled about opening the regular season in London with two games against the Kings.

General Manager Brian Burke signed off on the trip, but he expressed regret in requesting that they pick up additional road games on the way home.

“I think playing the games on the way back from England was ill-advised,” Burke said. “That’s my fault.”

TONIGHT

at Chicago, 5:30 PST, FSN West

Site -- United Center.

Radio -- 830.

Records -- Ducks 38-23-7, Blackhawks 32-28-6.

Record vs. Blackhawks -- 3-0-0.

Update -- Defenseman Chris Pronger, who’s missed two games because of a broken jaw, is on the two-game trip and is questionable for tonight.

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Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this report.

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