Russ Courtnall and Martin Gelinas each had a goal and an assist in the first period, leading the Vancouver Canucks to their second win in seven games, 4-2 over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.
Mike Ridley and Jyrki Lumme had the other goals for the Canucks, who have won four of their last five at home. Vancouver remained tied with Chicago and Calgary for seventh place in the Western Conference.
"Everybody did their jobs out there," Canucks coach Tom Renney said. "It was nice to see that everybody made it to the rink tonight. What was said in our (team) meeting was shown in the game. The team went out and got those two points. Now the real trick is to keep it going."
Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya scored for the Ducks, who have lost five of their last six on the road and fell four points behind in the race for the final playoff spot in the West. "We made mistakes in the first and we just woke up too late," Selanne said. "We had chances to get back but when you only play half a game on the road you won't get any points. You usually won't come back when you're down by two. We can't give up any easy goals, especially that shorthanded one. As forwards, we have to help our defense more than we did. They probably had eight or nine scoring chances."
Courtnall put the Canucks ahead for good 4:11 into the game with his seventh goal of the season and first since January 27th. Gelinas centered the puck from behind the net and Courtnall cut into the slot from the blue line before snapping a shot that beat goaltender Guy Hebert to the stick side.
Gelinas doubled the lead before the period ended with his first shorthanded goal of the season. Courtnall sent him in alone from the Anaheim blue line and Gelinas roofed a shot just under the crossbar.
Kirk McLean made the lead stand, stopping 19 shots to improve to 7-2 lifetime against the Ducks.
"Their goals were pretty zippy, tic-tac-toe, so I don't feel that bad," he said. "Hockey is a pretty simple game. We scored on our chances and shut down theirs. In the third, the guys were trying to pad their stats and that was great to see. That was the type of effort I expected."
Selanne got Anaheim on the board with a power-play goal just under four minutes into the second period, but Ridley and Lumme tallied 2:47 apart to extend Vancouver's lead to 4-1. Ridley put home a rebound of Dave Babych's shot after rookie defenseman Dan Trebil failed to clear it. Lumme blew past defenseman Dmitri Mironov and scored a power-play goal at 9:29.
"It's a funny game. Things just open up sometimes," Lumme said. "That's what happened and away I went. The bottom line is, when it came it was a goal it was needed. You need breaks like that. That was the game, we made the most of our chances."
Hebert was pulled after Lumme's goal and allowed four on 27 shots. Mikhail Shtalenkov replaced him and stopped all 12 shots he faced.
"We don't play in our own end with any consistency," said Anaheim center Steve Rucchin. "One game we're committed, the next one we are not. We just don't win if we give up four goals or more. We knew they would come out hard and we did too, but we didn't get it deep and the momentum went the other way. The Canucks needed a win also and they played well, not allowing to get us back in it when we were down. It's still a logjam for the playoff spots."
Kariya's 26th goal, with 15 seconds to go in the second period,
cut the lead to two.
Jon's 3 stars:
1. Jyrki Lumme
2. Martin Gelinas
3. Paul Kariya
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