Sometimes a road trip is what you need to clear the cobwebs and get away from the pressures of home ice.
The Anaheim Ducks have won two straight on the road with a 3-2 win over the Florida Panthers in Sunrise Wednesday night.
Nick Ritchie struck for the game winner with 1:28 left in regulation; it was his second goal of the game.
“Obviously being a bigger guy I like to get to the front of the net,” Ritchie said. “It’s a place where I need to do it on this team. I’ve done a good job of it the last couple of games and I got rewarded for it.”
John Gibson made 42 saves for the win.
Anaheim downed the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-1, Tuesday night.
The Ducks improved to 12-10-5 and are 4-1-2 in the last seven.
“It’s still early, but it’s quite a few games into the season, so we’re still trying to figure it out, but it’s definitely stepping stones in the right direction,” Gibson said. “It’s something we can build off of and hopefully carry it throughout the road trip and through Christmas.”
Aaron Ekblad and Evgenii Dadonov scored for the Panthers.
“It is frustrating,” Florida forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. “These kind of games we’ve got to at least get a point. We can’t get scored on late like that. You’ve got to battle through it the whole 60 (minutes).”
Josh Manson scored the first goal of the game at the 15-second mark of the game to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead.
“That was a big goal for us, that first one,” Ritchie said. “It’s tough running back to back. It’s not easy games, and to get a lead, it backed us off a little bit and settled us in. We didn’t play a great game, but it was good enough to win.”
[WATCH: All Ducks vs. Panthers highlights]
James Reimer made 22 saves in the loss.
“The first shot of the night went in the net on a tough bounce,” Panthers head coach Bob Boughner said. “I thought we controlled the second period. I thought the third period was fairly even, back and forth, we didn’t give a lot. We couldn’t find the third goal. We haven’t been good at winning these 2-1 or 3-2 hockey games lately.”
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