Ducks lose to Wild in overtime, 3-2

Yet another attempt by the Ducks to plug the hole in their goal failed Friday night, this time by a very narrow but very dramatic margin.

Their 3-2 overtime loss to Minnesota was the Ducks’ fifth defeat in a row as they struggle in the scrum of teams contending for the final Western Conference playoff spots.

Dan Ellis, the newest player to start in goal after he was acquired in a trade with Tampa Bay on Thursday, was victimized in overtime when the Ducks gave up two breakaways in the final minute.

Ellis stopped one but not the other, and Minnesota’s Pierre-Marc Bouchard scored with 6.3 seconds left in the extra period at the Honda Center.

“The first one I was able to shut the five-hole,” Ellis said of his stop on Cal Clutterbuck after Clutterbuck stole the puck from defenseman Toni Lydman.

“The second one, Bouchard pulled a little fake and opened me up just a hair and it kind of bobbled through my legs.”

Coach Randy Carlyle called the way overtime unfolded “a new one for us.”

“We got too loose. We got too aggressive on the offensive side and got caught,” he said of the two breakaways. “Obviously, you can’t do that.”

Ellis was acquired for Curtis McElhinney in the Ducks’ latest effort to shore up their netminding with All-Star goalie Jonas Hiller out with vertigo symptoms.

Ellis made 28 saves but was outdone by Jose Theodore’s 46. The Ducks trailed late in the third before recently reacquired defenseman Francois Beauchemin crashed the net and put back the rebound of a shot by Jason Blake with two minutes left in regulation.

The Wild had broken a 1-1 tie less than three minutes earlier, when Minnesota defenseman Clayton Stoner skated through the neutral zone and unleashed a shot just across the blue zone that found its way through an almost-invisible opening between Ellis’ pads as he went down with 4:57 left.

That goal, not the final one, was easier to hang on Ellis. Ellis displayed a sharp glove early, but he gave up a goal at 15:29 of the first when the Ducks allowed a two-on-one and John Madden roofed the puck past Ellis into the net.

The Ducks pulled even at 9:22 of the second, just as a power play expired, when Ryan Getzlaf went behind the net and passed the puck behind him to the front, where Jason Blake and Bobby Ryan took whacks at it, with Ryan credited for the goal, his 29th. The goal was the 100th of Ryan’s career. He turns 24 on March 17.

Despite the possibility of missing the playoffs for a second consecutive season, Ducks chief executive officer Michael Schulman and owners Henry and Susan Samueli have given General Manager Bob Murray an extra measure of security: The team announced Friday that Murray signed a four-year contract extension through the 2015-16 season. After a series of moves leading to Monday’s NHL trade deadline, Murray said he is inclined to stand pat.

“I don’t want to touch the team if I don’t have to,” he said. “I want us to get healthy again. For a while, we were a good team, when we were healthy.”

Etc.

Ducks center Saku Koivu missed a second consecutive game because of a groin injury. Getzlaf returned to the lineup after missing one game because of the birth of his first child.

sports@latimes.com

Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this report.