Ducks lose more than game to Stars

Frustrated by an offensive slump, the Dallas Stars could have easily veered from their game plan.

Instead, the Stars stayed the course and got a couple of fortunate bounces along the way.

James Neal and Steve Ott scored 71 seconds apart early in the third and Dallas beat the Ducks, 3-1, Thursday night, handing the Ducks their seventh straight road loss.

Anaheim right winger Teemu Selanne broke a bone in his left hand and didn’t play in the third.

He will have his hand examined by a specialist after he returns to California.

Selanne, who had an assist, said he almost sat out Thursday because of flu symptoms.

“I was this close to saying, ‘No I can’t play,’ ” Selanne said. “Some way, I wanted to play through it.”

Neal deflected a pass that then hit the skate of Ducks defenseman James Wisniewski and went in the net for the tying goal.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere appeared to stop Ott’s shot, but the puck managed to trickle between his legs and go in for the winning goal.

“We put in a pretty solid effort all night,” Ott said. “But two flukey ones go in and all of a sudden the tables are turned and we pull out a pretty solid victory.”

Saku Koivu scored 1:28 in and Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 34 shots for the last-place Ducks, who are 0-5-2 away from home since beating Philadelphia on Oct. 10.

Marty Turco stopped 26 shots and improved to 22-9-8 against the Ducks.

Giguere made that lead hold up through two periods. He stopped 12 shots in the first and 18 more in the second.

Anaheim’s Corey Perry had his franchise-record, 19-game point streak snapped. Perry had a shot go off the post in the third.

“We got some bad breaks,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “But you have to earn your breaks, too. I didn’t think we earned enough earlier on in the hockey game.”