VANCOUVER — Cutter Gauthier scored a hat trick for the second game in a row, the first player in Anaheim Ducks history to do it, and the Anaheim Ducks (7-7-1) held off the Vancouver Canucks (3-13-1) for a 5-4 win on Tuesday night at Rogers Arena.
Gauthier scored once in each period, twice on the power play, and finished the night with 10 goals on the season. He has eight goals in his last three games, six of them on the power play, and he leads the league with eight power-play goals. Beckett Sennecke set him up all night and finished with four assists. Mikael Granlund added a goal and two assists, and Leo Carlsson scored short-handed for the Ducks, who never trailed.
Granlund opened the scoring on the power play at 4:04 of the first period, putting a shot through Kevin Lankinen‘s pads from the slot on Anaheim‘s first shot of the game. Liam Ohgren tied it on a Vancouver power play at 6:04, finishing a scramble in front off a feed from Marco Rossi.
The turning point came late in the first. Ohgren picked the puck off Jackson LaCombe‘s stick and put it in for what looked like a 2-1 Vancouver lead, but the goal was waved off and Ohgren was sent off for hooking. Eight seconds into the power play, Gauthier one-timed a Sennecke pass from the left circle to put Anaheim ahead 2-1 at 17:07.
Carlsson made it 3-1 with a short-handed goal on a 2-on-1 rush at 2:58 of the second period. Linus Karlsson pulled Vancouver back within one at 8:17, waiting out Laurent Brossoit and scoring from a sharp angle, but Gauthier struck again on the power play at 18:25, another one-timer from the left circle, and the Ducks took a 4-2 lead into the third.
Gauthier completed the hat trick at 4:11 of the third, beating Lankinen with a wrist shot from above the right hash marks off the rush to make it 5-2. Jake DeBrusk scored twice for Vancouver to make it close — a power-play goal at 5:30 with Gauthier in the box, and a deflection at 9:34 — but the Canucks pulled Lankinen late and could not find the tying goal.
Brossoit made 19 saves for Anaheim. Lankinen made 17 for Vancouver, which outshot the Ducks 23-22. The Ducks went 3-for-3 on the power play. Their 10 power-play goals over the last three games are an NHL record — they have scored on 10 of their last 12 power plays in that span; Vancouver went 2-for-5. Elias Pettersson had two assists for the Canucks, who have won once in their last 14 games.
It was payback for the Ducks. One week ago in Anaheim, Vancouver rallied from three goals down to beat them 6-5 in overtime. This time the Ducks built the lead and kept it, opening their three-game trip through Canada with a win.
Up next: the Anaheim Ducks continue the trip Friday at the Calgary Flames.
Article provided by Sports Tracker
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