Ducks get a clue, a 3-0 win over Chicago and a winning streak
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Less than two weeks ago the Ducks were flailing through defensive lapses, suffering through porous goaltending and plummeting to the bottom of the Western Conference.
Altogether, they looked like a team that had never played the game before.
‘I agree with you,’ said Coach Randy Carlyle, who is rarely agreeable about anything.
Carlyle could afford to laugh heartily on Friday. The same group that couldn’t get out of its own way has won three consecutive games and four of its last five, including a decisive 3-0 victory this afternoon over the Blackhawks at the Honda Center.
The Blackhawks came to town with an eight-game winning streak, but the Ducks outworked, outhit and outhustled them, scoring three power-play goals against one of the NHL’s best penalty-killing teams and getting an 28-save performance from Jean-Sebastien Giguere in his 32nd career shutout, the first of this season.
Teemu Selanne scored in the first period and again in the second, and defenseman Nick Boynton scored his first goal as a Duck midway through the second. Corey Perry assisted on Selanne’s first goal, extending his career-best point streak to 17 straight games and tying Selanne’s franchise record, set in February and March of 1999. The Ducks killed off four disadvantages, helping their own cause.
‘It’s amazing, the difference,’ Carlyle said, ‘but that’s the thing that makes sports, and pro sports and team sports unique from the standpoint that everything we were trying to do two weeks ago seemed to go against us and now the things that are staples of our game are helping us have some success.’
Selanne said the Ducks were looking for a ‘solid’ game and got that from every player in the lineup.
‘Every time you play a team as good as Chicago it gives you a lot of confidence that you’re going to turn this around and play well,’ Selanne said. ‘But there’s still a lot of work ahead.
‘It’s a good feeling to see that finally we start being a team and everybody accept their roles and try to do their job as good as they can.’
More later from Robyn Norwood at www.latimes.com/sports
-- Helene Elliott