ANAHEIM – They’ve been skating across the tightrope all season, with barely even a knock-kneed wobble.

The Ducks compiled a 33-1-7 record in one-goal games this season. No team in NHL history totaled more one-goal victories. That says a lot, primarily that the Ducks are steel-nerved in stressful late-game situations.

Does it also mean that they’re headed for disappointment once the playoffs begin Thursday against Winnipeg?

Some regular-season stats portend playoff success, while others raise concern. It’s never a bad thing to thrive in one-goal games, but the issue is whether the Ducks can maintain a strength that has no tangible causation.

“It’s a different game (in the playoffs),” Ducks forward Andrew Cogliano said Tuesday. “There are way more emotional swings and things happen really quickly. It will be a good test, to see. It will show if the correlation between the regular season and playoffs is really there. Sometimes it isn’t. Hopefully in this situation, it is.”

It hasn’t been for a while. Carolina, in 2006, was the last team to lead the NHL in one-goal win percentage, then win the Stanley Cup. Since then, there have been more spectacular failures than successes.

In the past eight seasons, the most successful one-goal team has advanced past the first round of the playoffs only twice. New Jersey lost in the second round in 2007 and Pittsburgh lost in the conference finals in 2013.

Since 2006, no team that finished in the top five in regular-season one-goal win percentage has won the Stanley Cup. Of those 40 teams, only seven even advanced to the conference finals.

Colorado went a league-best 28-4-8 in one-goal games last season, then suffered a first-round playoff upset loss to Minnesota. The Avalanche played five one-goal games in that series, and lost three.

Last year’s Ducks also lost four one-goal games in the regular season. Then in the second round, the Ducks went 2-2 in one-goal games against the Kings and lost in seven games. Top one-goal teams Colorado, the Ducks, St. Louis, San Jose and Pittsburgh went 128-33-39 in the regular season, then 13-11 in the playoffs.

The problem is, one-goal-game success is based on intangible qualities. For certain, good defensemen help hold a late lead, and talented forwards can break a late tie with a skilled goal, but success in close games is typically attributed to know-it-when-you-see-it attributes such as heart, grit and composure.

“I think we just never quit,” goalie Frederik Andersen said. “We always play down to the wire and that has benefited us so far. We’ve had some bounces go our way, too, in those one-goal games.”

And that’s sort of the rub. In the playoffs, a couple of bad bounces can end a series and a season. What if the luck runs out? Still, the Ducks compiled quite a dossier of clutch-situation statistics this season.

In addition to their one-goal record, the Ducks set an NHL record for most wins (18) when trailing at any point in third period, and tied the NHL record for most wins when trailing after two periods (12). That’s the same type of third-period mettle that helped fuel the Kings’ run to the Stanley Cup last season.

“The biggest thing is just to be able to know you’re never out of a game,” defenseman James Wisniewski said. “We have the firepower to come back, and we have the defense and the work ethic and the commitment to hold a one-goal lead.”

The second period has been the Ducks’ season-long pothole (minus-23 in goal differential), but if they can get to the third period with the score relatively tight, they’re usually in good shape.

There’s no better example than the third and final regular-season meeting between the Ducks and Jets, on Jan. 11. The Ducks trailed, 4-2, after two periods, tied the game at 4 on Rickard Rakell’s goal with 2:03 remaining, then won it in a shootout.

“If we’re down one or two in the third,” Andersen said. “we can say, `Yeah, we’ve done this before.’ Everyone knows we can do it and it’s been done before. It’s always good to have that in your back pocket and pull those thoughts and those feelings out when you need them.”

Here’s another positive for the Ducks as the playoffs begin: Their late-game success is based on maintaining their game, not changing it.

Too often, when a team holds a late, narrow lead, it goes into a shell and simply attempts to fend off the opponent. The Ducks’ mindset is to keep pushing and get rewarded with aggressiveness.

“You can’t play defensive, and just play prevent defense,” Wisniewski said. “Keep going. If they’re 200 feet away from our net, they’re not going to score, right?”

That theory served the Ducks well in the regular season, to an extent never before seen in the NHL. Are they, though, doomed to join their recent one-goal-game brethren with early playoff exits?

“I hope not,” Cogliano said with a grin. “I think we’re confident in those situations now, so when we get into them, guys won’t be panicking or won’t be thinking too much. We’ll just kind of continue what we’re doing.”

NOTES

The Ducks are already bracing for a physical series with the Jets, who are big, fast and maybe a bit more mean. Winnipeg was the NHL’s second-most penalized team.

The buzzword Tuesday was that the Ducks will need to “play within the whistles” and not go over the edge in scrums that could land someone in the penalty box and put them at a disadvantage.

“We’re going to get hit,” Boudreau said. “We’re going to have to take it and hopefully we’ll wear them down and not the other way around. … That’s what playoff hockey is all about. Being able to take the punch to the head and keep moving forward.”

Beefy winger Patrick Maroon is up on the top line with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry as Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau looks to possibly match up size for size with Jets wingers Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler.

Maroon might also act as a responder for any time that Getzlaf and Perry are targeted, particularly by big defenseman Dustin Byfuglien. Byfuglien took runs at both during the regular season.

“Everyone is going to key on those two,” Maroon said. “They’re going to get hit. People are going to go after them, face-wash them. I just got to make sure they’re OK.

“We all know they’re going to get hit. We can’t respond stupidly. We can’t get in their face and go take a stupid penalty.” …

Goalie John Gibson and center Nate Thompson, who are both nursing unspecified upper-body injuries, did not practice for a second consecutive day. Jason LaBarbera is backing up Frederik Andersen while Chris Wagner is skating in Thompson’s spot on the fourth line.

Staff writer Eric Stephens contributed to this report

Contact the writer: rhammond@ocregister.com