Ducks end skid with win over Avs after penalties

In Anaheim, the Ducks trailed the Colorado Avalanche, 3-1 going into the middle frame.

Leo Carlsson and Alex Killorn (power play) scored for ANaheim in the second to tie the game, 3-3.

Regulation ended that way, and the Ducks picked up the win on Carlsson’s deciding goal on penalties, 4-3.

“I don’t want to say nothing special, but the nerves were the same,” Carlsson said of the shootout. “I kind of lost the puck there, so I was nervous for a tenth of a second and after that, I knew I had him, so it was a good shot.”

John Gibson made 34 saves in the win.

“The losing streak, it eats away at you,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “We actually should have won three or four games in the eight that we lost.”

The Ducks moved to 10-14-0.

“Everything he’s done for the organization, you just feel good about it once it happens,” Killorn said of Gibson’s milestone. “He’s put so much into this and he played great tonight.”

Bowen Byram hit for a double in the first period to give the Avs a 2-0 lead.

“We’re just not generating enough offense for a full game,” Colorado’s Devon Toews said. “We had a good first 20 (minutes), we thought we did a lot of really good things we talked about, and then we just kind of faded from there.”

Adam Henrique scored in the first to stop the Avs early run and trim the deficit to 2-1.

“We were down in the first, but we played well,” Gibson said. “We just gave them two odd-man rushes and they capitalized, but we just stuck with it. We knew it was a long game, we knew we had some pretty good legs going.”

The Avalanche dropped to 15-6-2.

“We had some self-inflicted mistakes in the second,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “But in the third, I thought we played really well. We had two breakaways, some real nice tip plays in the net front, some scrambles, but couldn’t get the go-ahead goal.”

Toews scored with 43 seconds left in the first to give the Avs a 3-1 lead headed to the middle frame.