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Ducks get some lucky bounces in 5-2 victory over Nashville

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NASHVILLE — Corey Perry days earlier said one of the factors bedeviling the Ducks during their 10-game rut was that the puck wasn’t bouncing the team’s way.

That changed Saturday night, as two Ducks’ passes were deflected off Nashville players into the goal and a long-distance shot weaved almost magically to the net through skaters’ traffic in Anaheim’s 5-2 victory over the Predators at Bridgestone Arena.

“You work hard, you create your own bounces,” Perry said. “A garbage goal, as they say, takes the monkey off your back.”

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BOX SCORE: Ducks 5, Predators 2

Winning at the start of the Winter Olympics’ 19-day break is “huge,” Perry said. “You lose a few in a row, it’s not a good feeling. Tonight’s a good feeling. Everyone’s going out on a high, and when we come back, we’ll be that much hungrier.”

The Ducks (41-14-5) have the NHL’s best record, a three-point Western Conference lead and a seven-point Pacific Division advantage after snapping a three-game losing streak that punctuated a 4-6 slump.

Perry scored his team-best 30th goal of the season by dishing a second-period pass across the crease that instead bounced off the bottom of sliding Nashville defenseman Victor Bartley’s skate to the net.

That stopped the Ducks’ one-for-17 skid on the power play too.

In the first period, Ducks center Ryan Getzlaf scored when his crossing pass struck a Predators’ stick and evaded goalie Carter Hutton.

Getzlaf closed the scoring with more trickery, flinging a backhanded shot from the Ducks’ goal line down ice into the opposite empty net for his 29th goal.

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Getzlaf and Perry now take their skills to Sochi, Russia, to play for defending Olympic champion Canada.

Ducks Coach Bruce Boudreau said to reporters afterward, “[For] mental-health sake, it was a big win. We didn’t want to go the next 20 days with you guys telling us we’d lost four in a row.”

The Ducks’ tie-breaking goal came 4:51 into the third.

Ducks rookie defenseman Hampus Lindholm saw teammates Emerson Etem and Andrew Cogliano in front of the net with Nashville skaters accompanying them and launched a blue-line shot that for now has been credited as Etem’s goal.

Etem, however, told the Ducks afterward he never touched the puck, so the NHL will review it Sunday for a possible change.

“Saw it go in, a lot of fun,” Lindholm said. “It makes us go to the break knowing we had a good first [60 games], knowing we have to be better as we get closer to the playoffs.”

On the other end, Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller produced a sterling effort, stopping 36 of 38 shots. He will now be Switzerland’s goalie at the Sochi Olympics.

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Nashville (25-24-10) had its own reason for wanting to close with a win, starting the night four points out of playoff position. Despite hammering Hiller with their best shots, the first intermission came with a 1-1 tie.

With 71 seconds left in the first, Getzlaf floated a crossing pass that deflected off the stick of Nashville’s Roman Josi past Hutton, leaving the Predators with the slumping shoulders that had plagued the Ducks.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimespugmire

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