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Ducks jump out early, down Canucks

Mar 13, 2008 - 6:19 AM By Craig Shultz PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) - The Anaheim Ducks haven't had much success on the power play in recent games, so they turned to their penalty killers for some offense Wednesday night.

Todd Marchant and Travis Moen each had a goal and an assist as the Ducks skated to a 4-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

Marchant opened the scoring midway through the first period just seven seconds after stepping out of the penalty box and Rob Niedermayer added the third first-period goal to pace Anaheim to its team-record eighth consecutive home victory.

Mason Raymond scored the lone goal for Vancouver, which had a three-game winning streak snapped and was thwarted in its attempt to sweep the season series against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

"This team has always played well at home," Moen said. "To keep that going is great. It seems like we always come out to good starts lately in our barn. It was good to come out and get a three-goal lead."

Marchant was returning to the bench from the penalty box with 9:07 remaining in the first period when he picked up a clearing pass from Chris Kunitz and fired the puck into an empty net, beating All-Star goaltender Roberto Luongo, who mistimed his attempt to make a play on the puck.

"I made a mistake on the first goal," Luongo said. "It's unfortunate; it was not a great timing, but sometimes you make mistakes. ... I thought I had it and I think the ice really slowed the puck down.

"Obviously, Marchant is a quick skater, so once I made my play and decided to go out there and play it, there's no turning back. I saw that he got there before me and I tried to dive at it to maybe poke it away, but it was a bit too late."

It was the eighth goal of the season - and third in as many games - for Marchant.

"I just happened to be in the right place at the right time," Marchant said. "(Kunitz) made a nice play to get it off the wall and for me, fortunately, Luongo decided to come out and try to play it. I got to it before him. None of my goals have been very pretty, to be honest. At the end of the day, no one really asks how, they all count."

"He's scoring from all over the place from behind the net, in the corner, into an empty net," said Ducks coach Randy Carlyle of Marchant. "The one thing that we ask of Todd Marchant is to play all three forward positions and to utilize his speed. ... When you talk about fruits of the labor, I think it's an instance where he's being rewarded for the hard work that he's been putting in."

The Ducks doubled their lead when Moen scored the first shorthanded goal of his career with 6:43 remaining in the session, wristing a shot past Luongo from the right circle.

Niedermayer continued the flurry with 3:11 remaining in the first period, taking a drop pass from Moen and scoring from the high slot to increase the lead to 3-0.

"It's no secret that the Ducks have a great hockey team over there," Vancouver defenseman Luc Bourdon said. "They proved last year and once again this year they show a lot great stuff. When they take a lead like that, it is really hard to play against them because they don't give you much. ... We didn't really give ourselves a chance."

Vancouver got on the scoreboard with 2:15 left in the first when Brendan Morrison fed Raymond, who put a one-timer past rookie netminder Jonas Hiller for a power-play goal.

Doug Weight broke the Ducks' four-game streak without a power-play goal, scoring with the man advantage at 4:03 of the second period. Teemu Selanne took a shot that caromed off the right post and bounced off Weight, who corralled the puck and put it past Luongo, who was relieved by Curtis Sanford.

Swiss rookie Hiller turned away 30 shots to record his third win in his last four contests.

All-Star Ryan Getzlaf had an assist on the final goal to give him 52 for the campaign, a single-season franchise record for a center. Andy McDonald had 51 assists in 2005-06 and 2006-07.