Torres Has Robust Return to Anaheim

The last time Edmonton’s Raffi Torres was in Southern California, he barely made it back to Canada because of flu, which forced him to sit out Games 2 and 3 of the Western Conference finals.

On Saturday, it was Torres who made the Mighty Ducks feel sick by scoring the game-winning goal in the Oilers’ clinching 2-1 victory at the Arrowhead Pond.

“There were times when I didn’t even feel a part of the team,” said Torres, who often was too ill to practice earlier in the week. “But today, I was lucky.”

With the scored tied, 1-1, in the second period, Torres scored his big goal when he skated away from the Ducks’ Francois Beauchemin into the slot and deflected a blue-line shot by defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron past goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

A difficult goal that Torres -- who had only two previous goals during this year’s playoffs -- made look easy.

“[Edmonton’s Shawn] Horcoff got the puck out of the corner and Bergy made a great shot,” said Torres, who played in Games 1 and 4. “I was just fortunate enough to get my stick on it.”

Torres’ performance did not go unnoticed by his teammates.

“That was just huge for us,” Horcoff said. “Our fourth line has played big for us all year.... Throughout the season, [Torres] has had chances, but the bounces have not always gone his way, but tonight, it did. He scored a big goal for us that really changed the game’s momentum.”

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Over the last four minutes of Game 5, the Mighty Ducks had two power plays, including a five-on-three situation that turned into six on three when Giguere was pulled for an extra skater.

But they were unable to score against Dwayne Roloson, who stopped 32 of 33 shots after giving up nine goals over the previous four periods.

“We had some chances,” said forward Rob Niedermayer, who did not score a goal and had only one assist in the series. “We put in a lot a shots at their goalie, but he played great for them. He made the big saves.”

For the Oilers, the clock appeared to stand still over the final minutes as they fought to earn their first trip to the Stanley Cup finals since 1990.

“It seemed like it took an hour and a half to play,” winger Fernando Pisani said. “We had those penalties in the end, and it was like we had this mad scramble. It got pretty hot back there, but our defense did a pretty good job. But it was pretty intense on the bench.”

Said Michael Peca: “We were getting frustrated with the opportunities that the referees were giving them, but we never got too panicked. We had that [feeling] that we had the entire postseason. We knew that we were going to win. It didn’t matter what obstacles were in front of us, we were going to find a way to win the hockey game.”

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Coach Randy Carlyle on Edmonton: “You always have to give your opposition credit. They came in and took home ice advantage away from us and won all three games in our building. From that standpoint, you can’t expect to win too many playoff rounds if you don’t win in your own building.”

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During the regular season, the Ducks were a strong team in faceoffs, but they had their problems against Edmonton, especially Saturday, with the Oilers winning 34 of 59 draws.

“That was huge, because the game really came down to puck possession,” Pisani said. “Our centers did a great job of winning faceoffs and not letting them get on top of us right away. Last game, they got on us pretty quick on faceoffs and lost draws.”

The Ducks got 36 points from their rookies in their three playoff series, the most points by rookies for one team in the playoffs since the Kings got 40 points from rookies in 1993 en route to a five-game loss to Montreal in the Stanley Cup finals.

Dustin Penner and Beauchemin led the rookie corps with nine points each, followed by Chris Kunitz with eight, Ryan Getzlaf with seven and Corey Perry with three.

Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this report.