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Pronger helps Ducks beat Sharks for second time in a week

Dec 23, 2007 - 7:43 AM SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- The Anaheim Ducks continued their recent road dominance over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday.

Chris Pronger had a goal and an assist and Corey Perry added a power-play tally as Anaheim won its third straight game with a 5-2 victory over San Jose.

After losing to San Jose at home in a shootout on Sunday, Anaheim won at the HP Pavilion, 2-0, on Tuesday, and have now won its last five games in San Jose overall. The defending Stanley Cup champions go into their four-day holiday break with their first three-game winning streak since claiming four straight victories from November 9-17.

Goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere improved to 4-0-1 against the Sharks on the season, making 27 saves, while the offense supplied its biggest output against San Jose all season.

"They're struggling as of late," Giguere said. "And we knew they had a meeting yesterday about playing better. If you're the other team and you know about it, you better be ready."

The Ducks opened the scoring late in the first period when Samuel Pahlsson won a faceoff back to Pronger at the point. Pronger's slap shot rang the crossbar on its way to the back of the net with 2:03 remaining in the period, giving Anaheim a 1-0 lead.

"Sammy won (the faceoff) real clean," Pronger said. "And Robby (Niedermayer) did a really good job of screening the goalie and fortunately it went in."

The Ducks then scored two goals just over a minute apart to take control of the game midway through the second period.

Perry attempted a pass across the crease on a power play, but it was blocked by blue-liner Craig Rivet for San Jose. The puck bounced right back to Perry in front of the net and the right wing wristed it over netminder Evgeni Nabokov's stick side shoulder at 10:32 of the period for his team-leading 19th tally of the season.

Anaheim extended its lead again just 61 seconds later when Sharks defenseman Christian Ehrhoff gave away the puck from behind his own net to Scott Niedermayer at the point. Niedermayer blasted a slap shot that was stopped, and Chris Kunitz deposited the rebound into the net a 3-0 lead with 8:27 left in the second.

"Moving our feet, playing physical on the forecheck, creating a lot of turnovers and getting traffic to the net tonight resulted in some goals," Pronger said.

Patrick Marleau cut the Sharks deficit to 3-1 early in the third period. Marleau centered a pass that deflected off traffic in front and into the net for a power-play goal at 3:17 of the period.

But the Ducks responded 44 seconds later when Todd Bertuzzi skated in alone and beat Nabokov to give Anaheim a three-goal lead. The goal was Bertuzzi's fifth of the season and was some redemption for a missed penalty shot earlier in the game.

"I was pretty (upset with) that penalty shot," Bertuzzi said. "I've been getting a lot of shots and, obviously with them scoring, we needed to bounce back right away and put them back in their place."

Marcel Goc scored his first goal of the season with 8:20 remaining for the Sharks, and Sean O'Donnell added an empty-net goal with just under one minute to play to cap the scoring.

The Sharks went 1-for-5 on the power play and are now just 2-for-27 against the Ducks with the man-advantage this season.

"Some of it is lack of confidence - how much are we going to talk about it," San Jose coach Ron Wilson said. "The same people weren't ready to compete when it mattered most."

Nabokov finished with 19 saves for San Jose, which is winless in its last three games and has fallen into a tie for second place with Anaheim in the Pacific Division.

After a two-hour team meeting on Friday, the Sharks held a brief 10-minute discussion behind closed doors after the game as the three-game winless streak matches the longest of the season.

"This is a team effort - the team wins and the team loses - and we understand that," San Jose center Joe Pavelski said. "We have to come tighter together."

"Everybody's got to do their part," Marleau said. "For me, it's leading by example, playing hard and doing little things."