ANAHEIM—The stars of the night may have been in Hollywood, but the stars on ice continued their success at finishing strong this season. Corey Perry scored a pair of goals in the first period to holding a 5-3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes at Honda Center Sunday night. The Ducks moved five points ahead to control the western conference lead with just 22 games left in the season.
After suffering a loss to the Kings on Saturday, a win against the hottest team in the NHL would be a fitting way to leave southern California on a much dryer note. Carolina opened the first period playing even strength with the Ducks until one offense superseded the other. Perry took the honor of scoring first on a wrist shot set up by Dustin Penner to give the veteran right winger his 31st of the season. The Ducks rush into the Canes’ end set Perry up, with the angled shot on the stick side of netminder Cam Ward.
Francois Beauchemin scored his first goal since December 31 on a drive from the far end that went over the left pad of Ward for just his second on the year. The margin only grew larger for the Ducks. Perry notched his second just three minutes later with a setup from Cam Fowler on a steal that Perry received shooting on an open net for their third unanswered in the period. The 3-0 score surprised the
Carolina bench as they took a dozen shots to the Ducks 13, but the solid defense in front of Anaheim netminder Frederik Andersen recorded blocked shots and takeaways.
The night only got worse for Carolina as they fumbled a play during their second man advantage that Saku Koivu stole in the neutral zone for Andrew Cogliano to score a goal shorthanded making it 4-0 three minutes into the game. It was Cogliano’s 19th and first back to back goals since having a hot streak back in December. Jakob Silfverberg scored Anaheim’s fifth unanswered on a pass from Kyle Palmieri where the right winger scored easily on the struggling Carolina goaltender to make it five for five from the Ducks. Despite the five goals allowed, Ward was not pulled from the ice, but instead coach Kirk Muller took a time out to settle his team down and help them make a game out of the time left.
The words of advice seemed to work as Carolina turned the second half of the period in their favor putting the pressure into the Anaheim zone where Andrej Sekera was again the first player from his team to score the opening goal in their favor. The defenseman’s shot through a small window during a four on four situation killed Andersen’s hopes for a career shutout. The Hurricanes outshot the Ducks 14-13, but with the four goal margin in Anaheim’s favor the chance for an upset was still far from becoming possible.
The third period was all Carolina’s game to lose as they pulled out what remained of their arsenal and went right to work possessing as much time in the Ducks end as they could. For minutes on end, the Hurricanes settled in and fired numerous shots at Andersen to increase their lead in order to find the goals necessary for a huge upset.
Their rage happened to cause a problem for the Ducks as Patrick Maroon got into it with Carolina defenseman Brett Bellmore to send the two to the box with fighting majors. After 11 minutes of play,
Carolina scored on Patrick Dwyer’s wrister that became his sixth of the season. The success of their third line helped the rest of the lines come alive and take every chance they could with the puck.
Andersen saw 18 shots through 15 minutes of play, but the 5-2 lead held its ground putting the Ducks in great shape for a win. Before they could celebrate, a last ditch effort from Alexander Semin made it a two goal lead with 65 seconds left. Not enough time to cover the spread. In total, they took 52 shots on Andersen who happened to set a career high making 49 saves on the night for a terrific performance. He earned his 15th victory with a .929 save percentage in his first start in over a month. The rest could set him up for the Ducks next match against Montreal on Wednesday.
