It took forty minutes in Calgary for the Anaheim Ducks to find their offense and did they ever find a trove.
Entering the third period the Ducks trailed the host Flames 2-1 and then scored five goals to grab a much-needed 6-3 win.
Andrew Cogliano, Francois Beauchemin, Kyle Palmieri, Jakob Silfverberg, Ryan Getzlaf and Hampus Lindholm scored for the Ducks who were mired in a string of losses and poor performances throughout the lineup.
“I think we were [desperate],” Getzlaf said. “We need to be at this time. I think everyone else is desperate right now and if you’re not playing that way you’re going to lose a lot of games as we’ve seen in the last two weeks here. It was nice to get one win and try to get this thing rolling back the other way again.
“We’ve been struggling a little bit the last couple of weeks. Tonight was one of those games where we looked like we took it upon ourselves to play hockey and get that killer instinct mentality, and that’s what we need down the stretch.”
The Flames are more dire need of wins with everyone around them in close proximity to the second wild card spot in the west.
“The mindset can’t change. That’s our situation,” Flames coach Bob Hartley said. “Tomorrow morning, we wake up and it’s another day. That’s the battle that we’re in. There won’t be any freebies, so we need to bounce back. With all the teams jammed in this [playoff] chase right now, the ability of any team — including ours — to bounce back, to regroup, to refocus from a bad game, that could be a very important point towards the end. We’re still in that mix. That’s what we wanted, so let’s forget about (Friday). There’s not much we can do. I will certainly not keep the DVD of that game.”​
John Gibson made 25 saves for the Ducks win.
Getzlaf’s goal bounced off the end boards behind Jonas Hiller, hit the back of Hiller’s gear and caromed into the net for a 3-2 lead to the Ducks.
“It’s nice to have one bounce that way right now,” said Getzlaf. “I felt like I’ve been shooting the puck a little bit more lately and haven’t been able to hit the net a whole lot. It was nice to miss the net on that one.
“I meant to shoot it wide because there was a guy in my lane and I just didn’t want to hit him. I wish I had that much knowledge of this building, but I don’t quite have that.”
The Flames hit the road the game for a seven-game stretch; Matt Stajan, Lance Bouma and Sean Monahan scored for Calgary.
You must be logged in to post a comment.