ANAHEIM — The hockey gods were on the Anaheim Ducks side Monday night having been the beneficiary of three self-inflicted Devils goals to give the Ducks opportunity to claw back a 6-5 OT win. The Ducks have now won eight of their last 10 games.
Branden Montour scored one and assisted on another in Monday night’s OT win over the New Jersey Devils. It was also one of those nights the Devils would like to forget. Three of the goals against Cory Schneider were directed into his net by his own team.
“A weird game, definitely, but we stuck to it,” said Montour following the win. “We played our game and were good enough to get two points.” .
Kyle Palmieri opened the scoring for the Devils only 1:38 into the game, but Ducks’ Jacob Silferberg evened it at 2:12 and Kiefer Sherwood put the Ducks up 2-1 seconds later with Brandon Montour recording his 11th assist on the play. A pass across the Devils’ crease bounced off a defender’s foot and in.
Palmieri scored his second of the game to tie it up a 2-2 and Damon Severson gave the lead back to New Jersey at 13:08 on a Devils power play.
Seconds later ,on a delayed penalty, Montour slipped in behind the Devils defence to his favourite spot in the face-off circle and ripped a one-time wrist shot to tie the game at 3-3.
Brett Seney gave the Devils the lead yet again, at the nine-minute mark to end the second period with the Devils leading by one. That’s when Lady Luck turned her back on the Devils.
A long back-hander towards the net deflected off a defenders glove to even the score again, at 4-4, with Aberg scoring his 10th of the year.
Devils defender Andy Green was victimized when a rebound from a shot by Ondrej Kase deflected off him into the net for the Devils’ third self-scored goal of the game, to give the Ducks the lead, but it didn’t hold.
In OT, Montour sent a perfect pass into the crease for Adam Henrique who was stopped with a fine save in the last minute of regulation.
With less than minute to go in regulation time, Marcus Johansson scored the tying goal and it was on to OT. That came after Montour sent a perfect pass into the crease for Adam Henrique who was stopped with a fine save in the last minute of regulation.
There was no scoring in the OT period, although there were some great opportunities. It was on to the shoot where Daniel Sprong and Ryan Getzlaf scored for the win.
Montour took a feed at the blue line and leaned hard on his stick to fire a pin-point accurate shot to the high stick-side to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead. The Ducks went on to win the game, by the score of 4-2. It was Montour’s third goal of the season and 13th point, tied with Jakob Silferberg in sixth place in Ducks scoring despite being a defensemen. Ryan Getzlaf leads the Ducks offence with eight goals and 14 assists for 22 points.
Less than a minute later it was 2-0 after newcomer Daniel Sprong threaded the needle with a laser accurate shot from an impossible angle, for his first NHL goal, and it was a beauty.
The Ducks lost the lead in the second period as the Black Hawks evened the score at 2-2, but Anaheim regained its composure in the third period with Ondrej Kase scoring his fourth and Silferberg with is sixth of the season to take a 4-2 win.
Friday night the winning streak ended for the Ducks when the Carolina Hurricanes blew the Ducks off course with a 4-1 ‘cane’s win.
Silfverberg scored his seventh at 11:47 of the first period, with a shorthanded goal but that was going to be all for the Ducks as the Hurricanes began to blow starting with Clark Bishop’s first of the season for Carolina to even the score after two periods.
The full force of the Hurricanes offence came to bear on the Ducks in the third. Goals by Brett Pesce, Justin Williams and Sebastian Aho nailed the 4-1 lid on the game.
Wednesday, Dec. 12th, the Dallas Stars, with a record almost identical to that of the Ducks, will go head to head. They will be off until Saturday, when they face the Blue Jackets.
