Jakob Silfverberg helps Ducks stop a skid

Jakob Silfverberg made the right call when he went to his backup plan.

Silfverberg scored the go-ahead goal 5 minutes 37 seconds into the third period to lead the Ducks to a 3-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night.

On a two-on-one with Andrew Cogliano, Silfverberg hung onto the puck and whipped a 40-foot wrist shot over Chad Johnson’s shoulder. Silfverberg has scored in three straight games.

“I was thinking pass first, but then their [defenseman] made a pretty good play and slid and I just had to get the shot off,” Silfverberg said. “I just tried to fire it quick and it happened to find a pretty good spot.”

Antoine Vermette and Rickard Rakell also scored to help Anaheim end a three-game skid. Ryan Kesler had two assists.

John Gibson made 31 stops for Anaheim, allowing only Mikael Backlund’s goal.

“I thought we got better as the game went along,” Gibson said. “They jumped on us a little bit in the first period but once we weathered that storm, we got our power play going and settled down from there and locked it down.”

After Dennis Wideman’s delay of game put the Flames down two men for 1:03, Calgary survived the five-on-three portion, but Rakell knocked a puck in from a scramble on the ensuing one-man advantage. It was the second power-play goal of the night for Anaheim.

Anaheim’s penalty kill was a perfect four for four.

“Special teams do have a huge impact on your success and your ability to have success,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “If you don’t have penalty killing, your chances of winning go down dramatically. You can survive without a power play, but you can’t survive without penalty killing, and more so on the road.”