Pronger gets Ducks a 2-1 win

The calendar turned three days ago and the Ducks hope their fortunes have turned as well.

In the first half of the season, the defending Stanley Cup champions underachieved amid a host of injuries and a major shakeup in personnel. Whether it comes back to haunt them in the final 41 games remains to be seen.

But the Ducks started the new year on the right note with a 2-1 victory Wednesday night over the Columbus Blue Jackets before a sellout crowd of 17,174 at the Honda Center.

Chris Pronger got the game-winner on a power play with 14.7 seconds left in the second period and Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 26 shots as the Ducks (20-17-5) picked up two points that will increase in importance as each day passes.

The win pulled Anaheim into a tie with Colorado for the seventh spot in the tight Western Conference. The Ducks are within five points of first-place Dallas in the Pacific Division.

“There’s lot of points available but there’s lots of teams playing for those points,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said.

“The three-point hockey game that’s available to each game makes the race even tighter as you go forward. You can win a bunch of games and not make up any ground. But if you lose a bunch of games, it’s going to be really hard to make up that ground.

“A lot of teams are in that situation and we’re no different.”

It is a key period for the Ducks, who began a stretch in which they play six of the next seven games at home. So far they are a solid but not overly impressive 11-6-4.

“If we want to put ourselves in good playoff position, we need to be a good home team,” Giguere said. “We did that last year and we need to do it again.”

The decisive goal Wednesday came on a play in which Pronger sent a wrist shot in toward Columbus netminder Pascal Leclaire.

As the rising puck headed for the net, Blue Jackets defenseman Ron Hainsey tried to pull his right hand away but the shot hit his glove and altered the trajectory downward past a stunned Leclaire, who then glared at his teammate.

“I was trying to catch it and just missed it,” Hainsey said.

Said Leclaire: “It’s just bad luck and it’s nobody’s fault.”

It was Pronger’s eighth goal of the season, his fifth coming in the last 11 games.

“Those are the bounces that you get sometimes,” he said. “For a while there, those were going against us.”

The Ducks grabbed a 1-0 lead three minutes into the first period when Ryan Getzlaf scored his 15th goal of the season to take advantage of a fluke play.

Francois Beauchemin rushed up ice and flipped a pass that went off the face of Blue Jackets winger Nikolai Zherdev at the Columbus blue line. Getzlaf picked up the puck in stride and easily beat Leclaire with a backhand shot.

Getzlaf also had an assist on Pronger’s goal as he had first multi-point game since Dec. 10 at Columbus and extended his point scoring streak to five games.

Todd Bertuzzi, who has been playing alongside Getzlaf and Corey Perry on the top line, also has a five-game point streak that’s his best since joining the Ducks.

“It’s nice when you contribute,” said Bertuzzi, who has six goals and 15 points in 27 games. “For me personally, it’s fun playing with those two. I think I play very similar styles to both of them. I think that’s why we spent so much time in the offensive zone.”

Columbus answered later in the first when Andrew Murray scored his first career goal in his third NHL game when he banged in his rebound off the right post past Giguere.

But that was all the Blue Jackets could get. The Ducks kept star forward Rick Nash off the scoresheet and killed all five man disadvantages they faced.

Rookie Ryan Carter played a hand in that as he took the place of injured Samuel Pahlsson on the main checking line, playing over 13 minutes and winning 10 of 13 faceoffs.

“I thought he did a heck of a job,” Carlyle said.

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eric.stephens@latimes.com