Anaheim Ducks continue surge with 6-4 victory over Calgary Flames

The Ducks remained on a roll with help from their power play.

Corey Perry had a goal and an assist Monday and the Ducks went 3 for 3 with the man advantage in a 6-4 victory over the Calgary Flames.

“We’re having fun,” Perry said. “Everybody knows their role, everybody’s playing their role and everyone’s doing the right things. It’s working out right now.”

With a 9-1-1 record in their last 11 games, the Ducks have passed the San Jose Sharks and climbed into second place in the Pacific Division. The Ducks trail the Kings by five points.

Perry tied the score at 3-3 at 2:15 of the second period when he banged a Cam Fowler rebound past Jonas Hiller on the power play.

The Ducks went right back to the man advantage and needed only 11 seconds to take the lead for good with the puck going in off the skate of Sami Vatanen at 3:20.

“All of us, we’ve got to get down, we’ve got to block some shots and not let them get to our net,” Flames captain Mark Giordano said. “There’s way too many pucks around our crease. You’re going to get burnt if you keep allowing that.”

Mike Santorelli scored twice and Hamphus Lindholm and Rickard Rakell also scored for Anaheim. The Ducks are 3-1-1 with two games to go on a seven-game trip.

Jiri Hudler had two goals and an assist to lead the Flames. Johnny Gaudreau had a goal and two assists and Sean Monahan had three assists as the Flames’ top line combined for nine points. Dougie Hamilton also scored.

“They made it tough,” Flames Coach Bob Hartley said of the Ducks. “They’re a big team so they keep you on the outside and they push you back, but I felt that scoring four goals at home should be plenty enough to leave the building with two points.”

Hiller was pulled after Vatanen’s goal, leaving with 13 saves on 17 shots. Joni Ortio, in his first NHL action since October, didn’t fare much better. He was beaten on the second shot he faced, Rakell’s goal at 12:18 of the second period giving the Ducks a 5-3 lead.

Ortio finished with nine saves.

The Flames made the score 5-4 on a Hudler goal with seven seconds to play in the second period, but the Ducks regained their two-goal cushion 51 seconds into the third on Santorelli’s second goal.

“It’s always nice when you have a couple-goal lead on a team,” Santorelli said. “It takes off a little bit of the pressure off.”

From that point forward, with momentum gone for the Flames, the Ducks didn’t give them many chances.

“I said in between periods, the only way I think we can lose is if we get into a track meet with these guys and you go chance for chance or take dumb penalties,” Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau said. “In the first period we took four and the last period we took none. It’s a big difference between winning and losing, doing the right little things.”

The Flames’ penalty-killing struggles continued. They’ve given up three power-play goals in three consecutive games and have killed a league-low 73.4% of opponents’ power plays. At home, they’ve given up 20 goals in 68 opportunities.

“It’s really frustrating,” Flames center Mikael Backlund said. “We were doing so much better after Christmas and we were trying to build on it. It’s tough to have so many penalties the last two games and today and not be able to kill them.”

Frederik Andersen finished with 33 saves to improve to 13-8-6.