Ducks increase lead over Stars

Had there been no shootout or a regular overtime session with a full five skaters per side, Sunday’s game between the Ducks and Dallas Stars might have kept going well into the night.

Which could exactly be the case sometime next month.

There won’t be a shootout when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin, but the Ducks were all too happy to grab a crucial extra point when it was available as Teemu Selanne and Chris Kunitz were successful on successive tries to secure a 3-2 victory at the Honda Center.

Instead of the Stars closing ground in the battle for fourth place in the Western Conference and home ice in the first round, the Ducks put another point between them and their Pacific Division rival.

The Ducks (45-27-8) hold a five-point lead on Dallas with two games remaining while the Stars have three left. If the playoffs were to begin tonight, the two teams would play Game 1 in Anaheim.

“Both teams really needed the two points,” Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere said. “It’s very much a possibility that we’re going to meet each other in the playoffs. You want to set the tone right now.”

Mathieu Schneider scored both goals for the Ducks, and Ryan Getzlaf assisted on each after sitting out the previous three games because of a shoulder injury. Giguere also did his part, stopping 23 shots in his first game since suffering back spasms March 21 while getting dressed for a game at San Jose.

Still, the Ducks needed extra time to beat the Stars (43-29-7) for the second straight time after losing five of the first six meetings this season. Niklas Hagman tied the score, 2-2, early in the third period when he jumped on a turnover by defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron that was forced by forward Toby Petersen.

“We’ve certainly had our struggles against them this year,” Schneider said. “The last couple of games, we’ve reversed our fortunes. The game there, they probably should have won. We had some great goaltending and battled through.

“There have been times this year I felt we outplayed them and they came up with the two points. It’s been a great back-and-forth series. . . . If we do end up playing them, it’s going to be a battle.”

The Ducks would need to come from behind, so to speak, in the shootout to notch their 27th home win, surpassing the 26 they’ve had in each of the last two seasons.

In the first round, Brad Richards scored on Giguere after Getzlaf had goalie Marty Turco beaten but slid the puck off the right post. Selanne quickly moved up ice on his try and got the puck past the backpedaling Turco and Kunitz followed with a nice move to his backhand.

Giguere recovered to foil Mike Modano and Jere Lehtinen on their attempts.

“We wanted that extra point,” Giguere said. “We wanted to distance ourselves from them and anybody that’s behind us. There’s a bunch of teams that are trying to catch us.”

Schneider got his first two-goal game since Oct. 11, 2006, when he played for Detroit. The defenseman ripped in a shot from the point in the first period and jumped into the slot to bang in another setup pass from Getzlaf.

Getzlaf upped his team-high point total to 79; he had 58 last season.

“You can’t say enough about what he’s done for our club this year,” Schneider said. “Especially as a 22-year-old. It’s amazing.”

--

eric.stephens@latimes.com