Ducks Get Firm Grip on Victory : Hockey: This time around, they grab the early lead on the Vancouver Canucks and don’t let it slip away, winning, 6-3.

It wasn’t the first Vancouver homecoming for the Mighty Ducks’ Ron Wilson, Anatoli Semenov and Garry Valk.

Just the first happy one.

The Ducks were still smarting from three consecutive one-goal losses, but they built a firm cushion Friday with a season-high six goals and held off the Canucks for a 6-3 victory in front of 15,550 at the Pacific Coliseum.

At this point, any victory would have been emotional, but this one was particularly so for Coach Ron Wilson, a former Canuck assistant, and for Semenov and Valk. They were Canucks last season and each contributed a goal.

“We used to play here, so we all know how hard it is for other teams to win here,” Valk said. “To almost win the other night, then to come back and win was special for myself and Semenov.”

The other standout was goaltender Ron Tugnutt, who made 44 saves in his first start in two weeks.

“Tonight Vancouver outshot us (47-24), but Ron Tugnutt came up with the big saves when we needed them,” Wilson said. “When you’re leading by a goal and he makes some big saves, then you come back and score another, those are big saves.”

It was the Ducks’ fifth victory and their second on the road, not including their neutral-site victory over Dallas in Phoenix.

They entered this game with their last encounter with the Canucks fresh in their minds. On Nov. 14, the Ducks were leading with five minutes left and lost, 3-2. They allowed two goals just 92 seconds apart, one of them coming while the Ducks were on a power play.

This time, they took a 5-2 lead into the third, and gave up a goal to Trevor Linden before Joe Sacco helped seal the victory with a breakaway goal at 9:55.

“We wanted to still maintain our aggressive approach to the game, but we wanted to keep the puck out of dangerous situations,” Wilson said.

The Ducks jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first five minutes on goals by right wing Todd Ewen--his third of the season--and Semenov, who scored his seventh goal and later added two assists.

Semenov’s goal came after he picked up a bad Canuck pass in the slot and shot it high and wide--only to see it come back off the glass and then into the goal off Canuck defenseman Gerald Diduck.

The goal extended Semenov’s point streak to nine games.

Vancouver twice cut the lead to one goal, but the Ducks knew from experience that was too close for comfort.

Tugnutt was sharp, even though he was making his first start since Nov. 5, when he lasted less than six minutes in a loss to New Jersey before being pulled with the Ducks trailing, 4-0.

Instead of getting a chance to recover from that outing a few days later, his next start was postponed when he strained his neck in practice the morning of a Nov. 9 game against Dallas. Guy Hebert’s good play and the presence of rookie goaltender Mikhail Shtalenkov conspired to make Tugnutt’s wait longer.

When his long-awaited new goalie’s mask arrived Friday morning, it seemed like a good omen. Tugnutt had ordered it days after the June expansion draft, only to have to wear a plain white mask until Friday because the special Duck design was delayed by the mask-maker he contracted.

Before the game, he said he wasn’t too worried about overcoming the layoff.

“I’ve got enough experience now I can rise above it,” Tugnutt said. “ It’s not like I’m a first-year kid trying to see if I can make it in the league. That happened to me before, against St. Louis, my first year. I got barraged early, four goals in the first period, and I was sent down the next day. I figured maybe I couldn’t play in the league, all these things went through my head. But I came back and I’ve been in the league seven years. I’m not about to lose confidence in myself now.”

After the game, his tune was different.

“This morning I kind of fibbed,” he said. “I was a little nervous getting back in there.”

Duck Notes

The Mighty Ducks have won only three of their last 14 games, but assistant general manager Pierre Gauthier said the front office is not pushing hard to improve the team through a trade. “We’re not looking to do anything. We still think we can improve with what we’ve got,” Gauthier said. “We feel confident with our club. Most first-year teams get in that mode where they make trades right and left and make a lot of changes. . . . We’d like to keep stability coming outing of the chute.”. . . Members of Paul Kariya’s family visited with Coach Ron Wilson after the game. Kariya, the Ducks’ No. 1 draft pick last June, is from North Vancouver. He will leave Maine for the Canadian Olympic team in December, and the Ducks will try to sign him after the Olympics. . . . Defenseman Mark Ferner missed a second consecutive game with groin injury. David Williams replaced him.