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Ducks take commanding series lead with OT win over Canucks

May 2, 2007 - 7:22 AM VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- Travis Moen was in the right place at the right time and now the Anaheim Ducks are a win away from the Western Conference Finals.

Moen scored on a rebound just over two minutes into overtime on Tuesday to lift the Ducks to a 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks in Game Four of their Western Conference semifinal series.

The Ducks have a commanding three-games-to-one lead in the series and can wrap up a trip to the conference finals for the second time in four years with a win at home in Game Five on Thursday.

Moen recorded his third goal of the playoffs just 2:07 into the extra session to give the second-seeded Ducks command of the series. Scott Niedermayer took a shot from the point shot that got caught up in traffic in the crease. The puck bounced to Moen in the slot, where he got off a snapper that beat Canucks goaltender Roberto Luongo to the stick side.

"It was a shot on net and there was a rebound and I just kind of scooped it up and threw it on net and I was fortunate that it went in," Moen said. "It's my first-ever overtime playoff goal, so it's a huge moment."

Anaheim trailed heading into the third period for the first time this postseason, 2-0, but defenseman Chris Pronger broke the ice with a goal and assisted on another as the Ducks rallied to force the extra session.

"We talked about it after the second," Moen said. "We had to have a better period to win the game. We just went out and battled, lots of hits and lots of shots on net."

The former Norris Trophy winner got the Ducks back into the game in the third period with his third goal of the playoffs just under four minutes into the third. He got the assists on the tying goal by Teemu Selanne.

"They were just getting shots from the point. Pronger was getting shots through and guys in front as usual," Luongo said. "When you're trying to preserve the lead, you need guys to block shots, go down, sacrifice the body, so they don't get those shots and rebound opportunities."

Pronger took a shot from the point that Luongo saved but he directed the rebound right to Selanne, who picked it out of the air and put it in the net to tie the game, 2-2, with 5:42 to play.

"We didn't give up. The third period was a good solid effort," Selanne said. "We kept pushing and pushing and found a way to score on a few goals. And in overtime we got a huge goal from our checking line.

"Sometimes in this league, you need to play a full 60 minutes. Tonight we didn't play that well, but we found a way to win. I guess that's all that matters. It takes 22 guys to believe that you can win. Tonight we found a way to come back and get the 3-1 lead going back home. This was a huge game for us."

Vancouver forced the action early on but never could put Anaheim away.

Markus Naslund corralled a rebound and scored his third goal of the playoffs to give the Canucks a 1-0 lead with just over seven minutes left in the first period. Brendan Morrison picked up his first goal of the playoffs with 2:29 to go in the second period to extend Vancouver's lead to 2-0.

"When they dropped the puck for the third, we were watching," Morrison said. "We stopped doing what we were doing. I don't know why, we knew they were going to be aggressive. We knew they were going to pinch. We said all night in the room, we didn't adjust."

Anaheim goaltender Jean-Sebastian Giguere made 24 saves and improved to 7-0-0 in his last seven starts here.

Vancouver faces a daunting task in trying to recover from a 3-1 deficit but need only look to its previous series for inspiration. The Canucks held a 3-1 lead on the Dallas Stars but a pair of shutout losses later, they were forced to play a Game Seven to advance.

"Well, look what happened last series. Dallas was down, 3-1, they won a big game on the road and then went back home and won again," Luongo said. "So we got to focus on the next game and make sure we get a jump on them."