3-1 Victory Caps Ducks’ Fine Trip

To deal with a disappointing loss in Calgary in the season’s longest and most critical trip to date, Mighty Duck Coach Randy Carlyle didn’t order a punishing practice or read his team the riot act.

Carlyle took them on a bike ride.

“We’ve never done that before,” defenseman Keith Carney said. “I think we needed to rest up. We needed a huge effort tonight.”

The ploy worked for the Ducks, who turned their jaunt in the picturesque city into an enjoyable airplane ride home with a 3-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Friday night at General Motors Place.

The win capped a productive trip; Anaheim won twice and picked up five out of eight possible points. The Ducks (26-19-11) also gained ground in the race for a playoff spot, closing to within two points of the idle eighth-place Kings.

“It gives you a chance,” Carlyle said of the trip.

It was the kind of response the Ducks hoped for after their loss to the Flames on Wednesday in which they gave up three power-play goals and showed little offensively.

“That was a game where we didn’t play our best,” forward Joffrey Lupul said. “There wasn’t a ton of emotion there, but we responded today against a team that we’re chasing.”

The night had an auspicious beginning when Duck defenseman Joe DiPenta put a wrist shot through traffic past Canuck goaltender Alex Auld from inside the blue line.

It triggered a three-goal first period and took some pressure off goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov, who made 27 saves.

The goal was the second of the season for DiPenta, a 26-year-old career minor leaguer who played for the Canucks’ American Hockey League affiliate in Manitoba last season.

“I can’t really take too much credit,” DiPenta said. “All I was trying to do was put the puck on the net. I wasn’t really expecting to score.”

The Ducks dominated the first two periods. At the 11-minute mark of the first, Andy McDonald extended his point scoring streak to a career-high 10 games with his 19th goal of the season.

McDonald, taking advantage of sloppy backchecking by Brendan Morrison and Todd Bertuzzi, jumped into some open space in the Canuck zone and converted a nice cross-ice pass from Teemu Selanne.

Another positive sign was the awakening of Lupul, who lately hasn’t resembled the scorer that he was becoming earlier in the season.

The second-year forward made it 3-0 when he put a wrist shot from the left circle past Auld, giving him only his the third goal in the last 13 games.

“It’s something you try not to think about,” said Lupul, who also got his 19th of the season. “In Edmonton and Calgary, I had a pile of chances. I could have had a couple in Edmonton and Calgary. It’s nice to get one in the back of the net.”

Vancouver Coach Marc Crawford had seen enough of Auld and replaced him in favor of backup Maxime Ouellet, who shut the Ducks after that.

But by then, they had done enough to call it a successful trip.