SAYING GOODBYE
The game was lost, but there was still time for another dash down the ice, with the puck on his stick and his linemates racing to keep up with him and the fans edging forward in their seats and the opposing goaltender wondering what Ryan Getzlaf had running through his mind.
Getzlaf accepted a pass from Ducks teammate Troy Terry and suddenly he was in full flight, going as fast as his 36-year-old legs would carry him down the center of the ice as he entered the attacking zone. In a few strides, Getzlaf whipped a behind-the-back pass to Adam Henrique.
In a nanosecond, Henrique smacked the flawless pass into the back of the net. Bedlam ensued.
It would be the last of Getzlaf's 737 assists
THE SCORE
BLUES 6, DUCKS 3
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and 1,019 points in his 1,157th and final NHL game, all franchise records. The final score of the Ducks' 6-3 loss Sunday to the St. Louis Blues at Honda Center was quickly relegated to the trash bin of history. A standing-roomonly crowd of 17,446 roared and chanted and cheered Getzlaf in his farewell game.
“Incredible,” he said of his final night in uniform. “It was incredible. It was a lot more than I expected and it was extremely emotional. Happy and sad and all of those other things at the same time.”
The Ducks have games Tuesday in San Jose and Friday in Dallas to play, but Getzlaf has played his final shift, providing one last thrill for the memory banks, for the highlight reels, for the Ducks faithful to smile and recall in the seasons to come. At the end, they wouldn't leave, wouldn't stop applauding the captain.
“It was awesome,” Getzlaf said. “It was more than I could ever imagine. The amount of people who showed up to go through that with me was incredible. I couldn't have asked for more. That showed me a lot. It hit me in the heart to see that many people showed up tonight.”
It certainly was nostalgic for a while, with a full house raining thunderous cheers upon Getzlaf during a rousing pregame ceremony in which the Ducks presented him with a golf vacation and a dune buggy driven onto