In Anaheim on Sunday, Cam Fowler put a shot on goal midway through the first period that found net and broke a scoreless streak that had lasted more than 173 minutes.
The goal ignited a long-lost offense for the Ducks who went on to beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-1.
“You could see it was like letting the air out of a big balloon,” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau  said. “And it was the same for the people in the stands and I think that’s why they cheered for so long after it was scored. They wanted to see a goal as bad as we did.”
Hampus Lindholm, Rickard Rakell and Mike Santorelli scored for the Ducks.
“I think it was huge,” Rakell said. “When you’ve had chances for so many games and so many shots and blocked shots, to see that go in — especially that early in the game — it was big.”
Nino Niederreiter scored the Wild’s lone goal.
“When we’re playing perimeter hockey and we’re getting too cute, that’s when we get in a lot of trouble,” Fowler said. “A lot of the goals we scored were from right in front of the crease, which is the identity of our team, so we got back to doing that. Get some pucks back to the point and feed them through and that’s where our big forwards go to work.”
Devan Dubnyk made 18 saves in the loss for the Wild.
“Funny game. It might have been our best game of the year,” Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “We’ve had too many of those, where we don’t bury when we get chances and we do too many things and it feels like you’re controlling the play. And then at the end of the night, you leave wondering why you didn’t win.”
Anton Khudobin got the start for the Ducks and made 34 saves in the win. So, while the offense came alive in this match the defense still needs work to cut down the number of shots.
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