The Anaheim Ducks’ season has been a test of patience as the club has worked through the schedule with many of the stalwarts on the injured list.
But Monday night, John Gibson made 34 saves through overtime and helped the Ducks to a 2-1 win over the Nashville Predators in the skills competition.
Ten of those saves came in the extra session when the Preds set up camp in the attacking zone courtesy of their power play.
The win pushed the Ducks back to .500 with an 8-8-3 record. 
“It’s definitely a step in the right direction, and hopefully something we can build off,” Gibson said. “It seems like we’ve been able to win one here and there, but not go on a run. Hopefully we can start stringing some together, take this as a stepping stone and build from it.”
The win was one game removed from a dismal loss to the Minnestoa WIld over the weekend.
“We felt we embarrassed ourselves with our effort and our lack of competitiveness in our last game. We needed a response game to feel good about ourselves. We felt we got that tonight,” Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said.
Ryan Getzlaf scored in regulation for Anaheim on a nifty redirect, shovel shot on net from the right circle.
“It was a great test for us, especially playing against those guys,” Rickard Rakell said. “It shows we can play with any team in this league.”
Kevin Fiala scored the lone Predators goal.
“I thought we started to get some looks in overtime,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “We could have won the game a bunch of times on the power play, and it just didn’t go for us. It’s got to be better, but there were an awful lot of looks.”
Nashville dropped to 13-3-1 and lost for the fist time in nine road games (8-0-1).
“We fought back again and got one point so we are happy about that,” Fiala said. “I think we have to play a better game if we want two points. We had a chance to bring two points back, but overall we have to play better. We can’t just think we can do it in the third period all the time.”
[WATCH: All Predators vs. Ducks highlights]
Pekka Rinne made 29 save
“We had a lot more to give. [Anaheim] played well. Give them credit; they were moving their feet, they were making plays, but I thought we weren’t the best version of ourselves tonight. It comes down to a shootout and it wasn’t our way this time,” Predators defenseman Ryan Ellis said.
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