Ducks complete rally with a defensive stand

A besieged group of Ducks’ penalty killers gained a dose of redemption Sunday night, providing the coda to a comeback that renewed their faith in themselves.

The one-goal lead they gained late after trailing all game was left to Jean-Sebastien Giguere and three teammates in front of him to protect for nearly a minute with six Kings ready to fire at will.

Protect it they did.

The Ducks managed to erase their six-on-three disadvantage over the final 56 seconds and pull out a 3-2 victory before a sellout crowd of 17,174 at the Honda Center.

Chris Kunitz’s goal with 3:05 remaining provided the late dramatics but the lead was far from secure when the Ducks’ Corey Perry and Chris Pronger took penalties 51 seconds apart.

Forward Ryan Getzlaf and defensemen Sean O’Donnell and Francois Beauchemin were left to defend against the Kings, who had already pulled goalie Jason LaBarbera for an extra attacker. Beauchemin blocked a shot by Michael Cammalleri and another Cammalleri attempt flew wide by Giguere as the Ducks (11-9-4) won their fourth of five meetings with the Kings to pull into a first-place tie with Dallas in the Pacific Division.

“You don’t really defend many six-on-threes,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “The worst-case scenario is six-on-four. But that’s what we had to do tonight. You’ve got to credit the guys that were out there. They got it done.”

That wasn’t the case in the last two games when the Ducks let third-period leads get away in losses to Dallas and Phoenix because of their inability to kill off penalties in key situations.

“We certainly didn’t make it easy on ourselves,” O’Donnell said. “I think it’s the attitude that we don’t seem to have that we had before where we’re just confident that we’ll kill it. Right now we’re thinking about it and we’re squeezing the sticks. We’re running around to do someone else’s job and we’re giving up more quality scoring chances that we seemed to do in the past. It’s nice to get that one at the end there. We’ll build on it.”

Instead of blowing a lead, the Ducks turned the tables with Kunitz providing the finishing blow. Kunitz put a rebound inside the crossbar over the fallen LaBarbera after the Kings’ goalie was peppered by shots from Kent Huskins, Andy McDonald and Todd Bertuzzi.

“We’ve been giving up leads late to come from behind and get a win,” Kunitz said. “It’s a momentum-builder for our team.”

The Kings (9-13-1) grabbed another 2-0 first-period lead for the second consecutive night on goals by Kyle Calder and Dustin Brown, with Calder getting his in his first game after missing eight because of a broken left thumb.

And as in their 2-1 win Saturday at San Jose, the Kings’ penalty-killing unit also got the job done, killing off three Ducks power plays in the first.

But they couldn’t hold this two-goal advantage, courtesy of Getzlaf.

Earlier this week, the Ducks signed their rising young star to a five-year, $26.6-million contract extension. It won’t kick in until next season but it may already be money well spent.

Getzlaf erased the lead with his first two-goal game of the season. The Ducks’ leading scorer got his first on a deft redirection and put in his second at 8:02 of the third, skillfully taking advantage of Kings defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky’s falling down to move into the slot and slip a backhander past LaBarbera.

“We made a couple of mistakes in the game and we had a couple of bad breaks,” Kings Coach Marc Crawford said. “Vis fell down and that’s mysterious, but it happens and he didn’t mean to do it.”

The Kings were left with what could have been.

“They obviously have a lot more experience than us, but it’s no excuse,” said LaBarbera, who made 29 saves. “We still have to find ways to get wins. It’s the second game in a row they’ve done that to us in the third period.”

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eric.stephens@latimes.com