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Perry, Getzlaf, Pronger help Ducks beat Flames

Nov 30, 2007 - 6:43 AM CALGARY, Alberta (Ticker) -- On a night when Jarome Iginla made Calgary Flames history, the defending Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks made sure they were the ones doing the celebrating.

Corey Perry scored his 13th goal of the season and Ryan Getzlaf and defenseman Chris Pronger each had two assists as the Ducks earned a hard-fought 4-1 victory over the Flames on Thursday.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 38 shots and benefited from some physical defensive play by Anaheim, which snapped a two-game road losing streak.

"We got the puck in the areas where we needed to score goals," Pronger said.

"We found a way to win a good game on the road," Giguere added. "We needed to bounce back after Vancouver (on Tuesday). We killed some big penalties. It wasn't always pretty, but at the end of the day, when you get the win on the road, that's all you want."

Iginla passed Hall of Famer Al MacInnis by appearing in his 804th game in a Flames uniform and got his team off to a good start with an assist on Alex Tanguay's power-play goal 3:08 into the first period.

"We've got to win games now," said Iginla, who did not want to talk about his individual accomplishments after the game. "It's critical times. We're three games under .500 now. We're playing teams that we have to catch in the playoff (race). We have to find ways to win, and we have to do it now.

"It's not just about shots. We're getting our shots. It's enough talking about other goalies stopping us. We're not making it hard enough on them."

With Pronger off the ice due to an interference penalty, Iginla came down the wing and slid the puck across to Tanguay in front of the crease. The 28-year-old left wing moved to the side of the net and slipped a wrist shot past Giguere for his seventh of the season and a 1-0 lead.

Iginla, who is tied for second in the NHL with 34 points, is in his 11th season with Calgary.

In a game that saw four men sent to the penalty box with fighting majors, the first person to hit the ice was official Thor Nelson, who was struck with the puck and forced a lengthy delay until it was determined he would remain in the contest.

Then, at 18:06 of the first period, Flames center Craig Conroy left for the locker room after being hit with Perry's stick. As Perry was being pushed around in the front of the net, his stick was up high and caught Conroy in the head, opening up a cut that required stitches.

Anaheim was in the process of taking control of the game by the time Conroy left, as Todd Marchant had answered Tanguay's tally with a goal at 5:53 of the first.

Veteran right wing Todd Bertuzzi dished the puck into the crease from behind the net, and Marchant sent a wrister past netminder Miikka Kiprusoff to tie the game at 1-1.

Getzlaf put on a stickhandling clinic to put the Ducks ahead, skating around three Calgary defenders before sliding the puck over to Chris Kunitz on the other side of the crease for a goal that put the Ducks ahead, 2-1, with 41 seconds remaining in the opening session.

"You're just seeing the talent that he has now," Pronger said of Getzlaf, who signed a five-year contract extension last week. "He's a tremendous player."

Perry took advantage of a tripping penalty four minutes into the second, slowly trickling a shot behind Kiprusoff that slid over the goal line. The play was reviewed for nearly three minutes, but the tally stood.

"A goal's a goal," Bertuzzi said. "We'll take it any way we can."

Former Flame Rob Niedermayer added a shorthanded empty-netter with 4:02 left in the game to provide the final margin. Kiprusoff turned aside 22 shots for Calgary, which has lost three straight and four of five.

"We work in practice and we do it, and then we don't execute," Conroy said. "We come out tonight and get the first goal. We should build on that. I don't know, we just sit back and watch somehow. We work hard, but working hard doesn't win games. We can't afford to go any lower."