In Anaheim, Jamie Benn made quick work of overtime on Thursday night when he scored with just 53 seconds gone in the extra session for a 3-2 win for the Dallas Stars over the Ducks.
Anaheim has now lost 11 straight games.
“Every game from here on out is huge,” Benn said. “We’ve got to find a way to win games, and we did that tonight.”
Jake Oettinger made 21 saves in the Stars win.
Jamie Drysdale and Kevin Shattenkirk scored for Anaheim.
“That’s what playoff hockey looks like,” Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins said. “There’s no room, and it becomes frustrating. For some of our guys who haven’t been through it, that is a good experience.”
The Ducks dropped to 27-30-12.
“I didn’t think we were ready to play,” Eakins said. “We didn’t come out in that first period with a lot of anger.”
Ryan Suter and Andrej Sekera were the Dallas strikers in regulation.
Suter scored off the power play finally get one for the Stars.
“When you’re struggling [on the power play], you’ve got to simplify,” Suter said. “Shots on the net, make rebounds and then making plays off that rebound. It was good for us to get that and, hopefully, we can build on that now.”
Dallas improved to 38-25-3.
“It wasn’t the smoothest game,” Dallas coach Rick Bowness said. “It was a little choppy.”
John Gibson made 32 saves in the Ducks loss.
“I love how we stuck with it at the end there,” Shattenkirk said. “We gave up that late goal but our mindset on the bench was, ‘Let’s go out there and keep playing and hope for our chance.'”
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