ANAHEIM, Calif. – Ryan Johansen’s left thigh. Mike Fisher’s right eye. Both took hits from the knees of Anaheim Ducks defenseman Josh Manson, leaving the Nashville Predators with a crater where they used to have a depth chart at center.

Manson connected with Johansen late in the second period of the Ducks’ 3-2 overtime win over the Predators in Game 4 of the Western Conference final. He caught Fisher hard in the face while the Ducks were trying to preserve their lead late in regulation.

So as the Predators and Ducks prepare for the tie-breaking Game 5 at 6:15 p.m. Saturday at Honda Center, we know Johansen is done for the rest of the postseason after requiring emergency surgery on the thigh. And though there’s no official word on Fisher, it looks grim for him in the short term and we will have to see in the long term – if this postseason still has a long term.

So the Dirty Ducks win, right? Well, yes, no and maybe.

This team is dirtier than most in the NHL, some say the dirtiest, and that’s a reputation that has held firm for a solid decade now. This is, of course, all relative to the changing standards of the NHL, which has cleaned some things up from a past of more fighting, more nasty stuff and zero discussion of concussions. All-time NHL dirtbags such as Claude Lemieux and Marty McSorley would laugh at what we call "dirty" these days.

But physicality and borderline plays will always be part of this game, and the Ducks are liberal with both. Ryan Kesler is the league’s premier instigator, his battle with Johansen the main event of this series before Johansen was lost.

Corey Perry might have more of an edge. Witness the shot he gave to the face of Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne with the butt end of his stick in overtime Thursday, after the whistle and with Mattias Ekholm trying to push him away.

“The Ducks were basically targeting Rinne’s head,” SportsNet analyst Elliotte Friedman said on the Canadian network’s Starting Lineup show after Game 4. “I couldn’t believe what they got away with in overtime. I mean, I know you don’t like to call a penalty in overtime, but when someone butt-ends the goalie’s mask, you’ve got to call that. That’s ridiculous.”

Friedman also compared the Ducks’ approach to a famously dirty NBA team of the late 1980s, saying: “Anaheim is doing the old Detroit Pistons philosophy. And that is that, ‘We’re going to commit a thousand penalties, and we’ll see how many of them they actually call.’ ”

The Ducks work in the margins, more than most. Perry, who got the winning goal Thursday when he flipped a puck that went off P.K. Subban’s stick and past Rinne, has done things like that his whole career. Same with Kesler.

And they infuriate opponents even more because they’re both good hockey players as well. The Ducks have done their thing in this series and the Predators have done their share of retaliating – in some cases, instigating – and now Nashville faces a crucial Game 5 with a gutted lineup.

But, while I’m sure Predators fans will let Manson hear about it during Monday’s Game 6 at Bridgestone Arena, I just don’t think “dirty” when I watch either of those plays. The Johansen play was especially harmless, not even qualifying for a hit on the boards.

But Johansen was in obvious pain on the bench right afterward. Maybe there was a cumulative effect at work, and obviously the issue didn’t reach emergency levels until after a game Johansen completed. It looks like a freakish thing.

The contact with Fisher’s face was much more intense, and that right eye was squirting blood on the bench before he left the arena. But Manson was leaping high to bat a puck away with his right hand on the play, and I don’t think he was multi-tasking there.

He did damage, though. And if Fisher is indeed out Saturday and beyond, Peter Laviolette has some interesting decisions to make. Vladislav Kamenev, who had 21 goals and 51 points this season for the minor-league Milwaukee Admirals, is a promising 20-year-old prospect whose time may be arriving early.

So yes, the Ducks can get pretty grimy. No, that’s not why the Predators are short-handed. And maybe this kills their chances of winning this series, maybe not. There are still a lot of actual hockey plays to be made.

Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.