The Anaheim Ducks came into Friday’s game with the Minnesota Wild with few incentives except to end a three-game skid.
John Gibson made 32 saves to lift the Ducks to a 2-1 road win over the Wild.
“That’s playoff hockey,” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “One-goal games, right to the end, they keep pushing and we keep trying to defend it.
“It wasn’t great game for us, if you’re looking for a perfect game. But it was a character game. We all hung in together.”
Anaheim now has 93 points, good for first overall in the NHL.
“I was expecting a 1-0 or 2-1 game,” Anaheim defenseman Francois Beauchemin said. “That’s how it is against that team. It just happens that way; we both play a really tight game and they’re always a close match.”
Beauchemin opened the scoring with less than one minute left in the first period.
“The way they came out in the first, [Gibson] made some really big saves,” Beauchemin said. “Even though we got a bad bounce on their goal, we kept playing the way we wanted and he kept making the big saves at the key moments.”
Zach Parise tied it up midway through the second.
“It’s the kind of game we expected,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “It seems like every time we play them, it has that feel that it’s one play that is going to make the difference in the game.”
Just over two minutes after Parise’s goal, Jakob Silfverberg potted his 11th for the eventual game-winner.
Devan Dubnyk made 22 saves in the loss and is now 19-5-1 for the Wild.
“We had some good chances at the end of the game, we just weren’t able to bury it,” Minnesota’s Ryan Suter said. “We were getting a lot of shots, a lot of chances, we just couldn’t finish.”
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