Ducks get on a real power trip

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Not only did Corey Perry take his coach’s message to heart Monday night, but the Ducks’ leading goal scorer put the lesson he learned into application.

Instead of taking another ill-advised penalty, Perry drew two important calls, including one that proved decisive in the Ducks’ 4-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Chris Pronger’s goal in overtime.

Perry scored two goals to run his season total to 17. But it was the two penalties he drew that led to power-play goals, the second infraction called on defenseman Duvie Westcott for hooking.

Pronger won it when his shot from the point got past goalie Pascal Leclaire after deflecting off the shaft of defenseman Adam Foote’s stick. The struggling Ducks’ power play, which was 26th in the league before the game, produced three goals in a game for the first time this season.

“It’s a good feeling when you draw a penalty and your team responds by scoring a goal off of it in overtime and you get the win off of it,” said Perry, who is third on the team with 54 penalty minutes.

It allowed the Ducks (15-13-4) to head home with two wins on their three-game trip and helped them pull into a tie for second with San Jose in the Pacific Division, two points behind Dallas.

“Not a great trip but a good trip,” Pronger said. “We battled hard and found a way to win.”

Coach Randy Carlyle was highly critical of the Ducks’ penalty-laden 4-2 defeat Saturday against Nashville and directed much of his postgame criticism at Perry after the forward took one of several offensive-zone penalties that he has been guilty of over the last several games.

Perry paid the price by being benched for the third period against the Predators. Monday’s response was more to Carlyle’s liking.

“That’s a guy getting it,” Carlyle said. “We’re critical of individuals, but we always try to put them in situations to have some success and go back to that individual and say, ‘Hey, you can do it’ and here’s your opportunity. We believe you can do it and now go do it for us.”

Perry understood the message.

“It was something I had to take to heart and move forward,” he said. “Just got to bear down and be careful with the stick. Good things are going to happen when you do that.”

The Ducks came through in a see-saw game in which center Samuel Pahlsson was successful on the first penalty shot of his seven-year career. With Columbus on a power play, Rob Niedermayer set up Pahlsson with a breakaway and the checking center earned the shot when he was hooked by Nikolai Zherdev as he went in on Leclaire.

Pahlsson beat Leclaire with a nifty fake that had the goalie committed one way before shifting the puck to his forehand.

“That was fun,” Pahlsson said. “I had a plan for it and it worked out.”

It wouldn’t be an official game without the Ducks taking their share of penalties. They had 12, all but one of which were minors, but they erased seven of nine disadvantages.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere held the Ducks together with a 32-save effort.

“We didn’t give up a whole lot in those instances,” Pronger said. “It looks worse than it is. We were playing smart defensively and not giving them anything in the slot or the high-scoring areas.

“It may look like we’re running around a bit or we don’t know what we’re doing but there’s a method to the madness.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com