Ducks look tough to beat again

SAN JOSE -- In a jovial dressing room after Wednesday’s overtime win over Colorado, Ducks defenseman Mathieu Schneider offered an insight into a changing dynamic within.

“You can sense that some of the guys have their swagger back a little bit,” Schneider said at the time. “That little cockiness that’s important to have in a winning hockey club.”

Maybe the big bad Ducks are back after all.

Playing with newfound confidence following the return of Scott Niedermayer and the addition of Doug Weight, the Ducks took their act back to HP Pavilion on Saturday night and throttled the San Jose Sharks yet again, this time by a 5-2 score to finish off a three-game miniseries of sorts with their Pacific Division rival this week.

It is the Ducks’ third consecutive win since a shootout loss to the Sharks on Sunday and their second victory in San Jose over a five-day span to extend their winning streak here to six games. Anaheim’s last loss here came on Dec. 16, 2006.

Now three games over .500 for the first time this season, the Ducks are pushing people around and not stumbling over themselves.

“It’s been a thing that this organization has always had since I’ve been playing against it,” said forward Todd Bertuzzi, one of four different scorers. “The last couple of years, we’ve had that swagger, that confidence. That you-have-to-be-at-the-top-of-your-game kind of attitude.

“It’s a good start. A start in the right direction.”

Chris Pronger scored his fourth goal in seven games and Corey Perry got his team-high 19th. Slumping winger Chris Kunitz also scored and defenseman Sean O’Donnell added an empty-net goal to give goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere plenty of offensive support.

Giguere wasn’t as sharp against the Sharks as he was Tuesday when he got his first shutout of the season. Yet he was solid again, making 27 saves and staying cool in net as the Sharks finally got desperate to make a game of it after being down, 3-0, to start the third period.

“There’s part of our game that you can always look to improve on,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “The one thing that we’ve been able to demonstrate in the last five or six games to ourselves is how hard we have to work to have success.”

Meanwhile, the Sharks aren’t in a good place despite their 18-12-5 record that’s still good enough to put them in a tie for second with the Ducks and three games in hand.

A two-hour, players-only meeting, prompted by General Manager Doug Wilson, was called Friday to address some internal issues after their 3-2 shootout loss to Phoenix on Thursday night.

The perception is that San Jose, a trendy pick by many to win the Stanley Cup, has been a disappointment. And the team that had those same expectations last season and delivered on them dished out another lesson.

“We’ve been in the same situation this year,” Giguere said. “When you have those kind of games, if you know about it, you’d better be ready because you know they’re going to come.”

Bertuzzi got stopped on a penalty shot in the first period, but he gained some revenge in the third.

The sellout crowd of 17,496 got charged up after Patrick Marleau’s power-play goal at the 3:17 mark. But only 44 seconds later, Bertuzzi took a fine pass off the sideboard by Kent Huskins and beat Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov on a breakaway for his fifth goal in 24 games.

“I was pretty [ticked] off with that penalty shot,” Bertuzzi said. “I didn’t sell it enough. But you can’t complain. I’ve been getting a lot of chances and a lot of shots.

“Obviously with them scoring, we needed to bounce back right away. It was nice to bounce back immediately and put it back in their face.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com