Ducks Out of the Rut

The results told otherwise, but the Mighty Ducks insisted they weren’t as bad as a recent winless three-game trip indicated.

Against the struggling Phoenix Coyotes, the Ducks righted some of their wrongs Sunday, jumping to a three-goal lead on the way to a 5-3 victory at the Arrowhead Pond.

Not everything was corrected -- they gave up two power-play goals for the sixth consecutive game. But the Ducks got goals from five players and tied their season high set in an opening-night victory at Chicago.

“I thought we at least showed that we weren’t going to use the road trip as any kind of excuse for us,” Duck Coach Randy Carlyle said. “We were prepared mentally and physically today.”

Petr Sykora gave them an early lead and Teemu Selanne notched his team-leading fifth goal, but it was Andy McDonald’s goal that provided the biggest lift in a dominating first period.

Rob Niedermayer won a faceoff with time running out and got the puck to Joffrey Lupul, who fed a streaking McDonald. The speedy center pushed the puck past Coyote goalie Curtis Joseph with two-tenths of a second remaining. Joseph was subsequently pulled for backup David LeNeveu.

The last-second goal in the first proved to be key when former Duck Mike Leclerc scored twice in the second period to get the Coyotes back in the game. The left wing spent his first eight NHL seasons with the Ducks before being traded to Phoenix in a cost-cutting move Aug. 23.

“You always want to kind of stick it to the team that didn’t want you,” Leclerc said. “But it’s still a loss, so it’s not a big deal.”

With Ilya Bryzgalov looking somewhat shaky in his second start in place of Jean-Sebastien Giguere and the Ducks reeling from a lackluster second period, Jonathan Hedstrom restored their confidence by punching in a short-handed goal at 4:41 of the third for a 4-2 lead.

It was Hedstrom’s first NHL goal. LeNeveu failed to corral Samuel Pahlsson’s quick wrist shot on a rush when defenseman Jason Marshall was in the penalty box.

Niedermayer added one more goal with 34 seconds left when he scorched a low shot past a scrambling LeNeveu.

LeNeveu was heading toward the bench but had to race back toward the net when the Ducks gained possession in the neutral zone.

The goal provided a boost to a sagging power play as they scored twice in six chances.

The Ducks’ power play ranked 26th of 30 teams going into the game.

“With the amount of calls being made, we have to win the special teams battle,” Niedermayer said. “When you lose that, that’s usually the outcome of the game.”

In his third career start, Bryzgalov got his second win, stopping 24 shots. Bryzgalov also beat Phoenix in his first NHL game, March 16, 2004.

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Results of Saturday’s MRI test on center Sergei Fedorov’s strained groin muscle were negative. ... Giguere said his groin injury is about the same as it was Saturday and he thinks he will be ready sometime this week. ... Forward Ryan Getzlaf injured his left shoulder on a hit in the third period and didn’t play the final six minutes. He’ll be reevaluated today.