Ducks’ young line stepping it up

They toyed with the American Hockey League a year ago as the best line in the minors, so naturally the Ducks’ young trio of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Dustin Penner would replicate their dominance in the NHL.

The three have all had their moments over the last two years but rarely did they work their chemistry as a unit. Now they’re giving opposing teams another line to fear when the Stanley Cup playoffs arrive.

Getzlaf scored two goals, and Perry and Penner each had one as they combined for seven points in the Ducks’ 5-1 rout of the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night at the Honda Center.

All three had multiple-point nights and continued to reward the faith of Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle, who put them together six games ago.

“We’re realizing how we play as a line at this level,” said Penner, who got his 25th goal in the second period. “We figured it out in the minors, but it took a longer time [here] for whatever reason.”

Said Perry: “Hopefully we can stick together for a while and do things we did [in Portland] and bring it to this league.”

In taking care of business, the Ducks (41-17-11) pushed themselves 10 points ahead of Dallas and San Jose as they scratched off another game in pursuit of their first Pacific Division title.

The Ducks, in winning their fourth in a row, did what they were supposed to do against an injury-plagued and emotionally fragile team that’s a shell of the one that kept the Ducks from reaching the Stanley Cup finals and took eventual champion Carolina to a seventh game.

What looked like an attractive late-season rematch became a one-sided affair once the Oilers waved the white flag in trading heart-and-soul forward Ryan Smyth to the New York Islanders last week.

Edmonton lost its fifth straight game since dealing Smyth and has dropped six in a row overall while skating a lineup devastated by injuries to 10 players.

The Oilers’ situation is so bad they dressed only 17 skaters and goaltenders Dwayne Roloson and Jussi Markkanen. Eight of those 17 spent time in the AHL this season.

Not that the Ducks felt bad about their predicament.

“Our focus wasn’t on Edmonton,” Carlyle said. “We know that they’re decimated with injuries. The one thing we wanted to focus on was the things that we do well.”

The Oilers started Markkanen on this night, perhaps because of his 5-0 record and 1.79 goals-against average against the Ducks and Roloson’s recent struggles in the net. Markkanen was back on the bench as the sellout crowd of 17,174 was still filing into the arena.

Shawn Horcoff took a high-sticking penalty 37 seconds into the game and Getzlaf made it 1-0 on the Ducks’ first shot when his blistering one-timer skipped off the stick of an Edmonton defender and past Markkanen, who got an immediate hook from Coach Craig MacTavish.

“I didn’t get all of it but I’ll take anything that comes my way right now,” Getzlaf said.

Perry took his turn on the scoresheet when he put a wraparound off Roloson for his 15th goal. The kids then worked some magic with wily captain Scott Niedermayer.

Perry beat Edmonton rookie Danny Syvret to a puck in the offensive zone and passed back to Niedermayer, whose nifty one-touch backhand feed allowed Getzlaf to rip in another one-timer for the center’s 23rd goal.

Andy McDonald then became the fifth player to reach 20 goals when he scored with 2:06 left. Until this season, the Ducks had no more than three players reach that mark in the same season.

“We think we have a balanced group,” Carlyle said. “The whole key with us is if we play solid defense, we’ll get our chances.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com.