Canucks edge Anaheim, 2-1 Rare one-goal loss for Ducks

In Vancouver Monday night, the Canucks used a solid game from Eddie Lack who made 29 saves in a 2-1 win over the Anaheim Ducks.

“I think whenever you play them you’re going to have a battle,” Canucks coach Willie Desjardins said. “You look at all their one-goal games, that’s just how they play.”

It was a rare one-goal loss for the Ducks who have been masters of the tight game.

“We’re definitely comfortable playing in them,” captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “Eventually it was going to bite us.”

Vancouver’s Zack Kassian scored the game-winner with less than four minutes left in regulation as he beat Frederik Andersen by squeezing the puck past the Ducks netminder.

“I squeaked it by him,” Kassian said. “(Hamhuis) made a great play finding me at the net. It just had enough.”

Andersen faced only 16 shots on the night as the Ducks defense was solid in moving the Canucks to the outside and blocking shots in front.

Eddie Lack stopped 29 in home win over Ducks – file photo by Lewis Bleiman

“Listen, we hate to lose and I am mad and frustrated as anybody. But that was not a bad effort,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We shut them down defensively. We just have to find a way to score.”

With the regular season dwindling down at this point, the Ducks as are most teams, in playoff mode and the effort Monday night was worthy of post season hockey.

Many of the Ducks shots found iron on the night and Lack felt lucky on some including a shot from Corey Perry.

“A little bit lucky at the end,” Lack said. “I’m feeling good right now, I’m not going to lie. It’s fun playing right now, playing these hard games, tough games.”