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Selanne powers Ducks past Avalanche

Nov 25, 2008 - 7:03 AM By Craig Shultz PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Teemu Selanne scored two power-play goals and the Anaheim Ducks continued their home ice mastery of the Colorado Avalanche with a 4-1 victory on Monday night.

Eleven of Selanne's 12 goals this season have come with the man advantage. The Finn leads the NHL in power play goals.

Defenseman Chris Pronger recorded a goal and an assist, Chris Kunitz also tallied and Jean-Sebastien Giguere finished with 29 saves for Anaheim, which won its fourth consecutive home game against Colorado and improved to 7-1-1 in the last nine against the Avalanche at the Honda Center.

Ian Laperriere had the lone goal for Colorado, which fell to 1-3-0 in its last four games.

"All those guys who I play with on the power play, they can see the game so well," Selanne said. "They can shoot, they can pass. You know that if you get open, the puck is going to come. It's a pleasure to play with those guys. ... Everybody is so important, not just a few guys. Every player can do pretty much everything."

The Ducks won after going just 2-3-1 on their previous homestand.

"We have to get that feeling back that this is our barn and getting points from here is going to be tough," Selanne said. "The last three years we've had a really good home record. The home advantage is huge. The good start, especially in your building is huge. We did a better job today and we have to keep doing that more often here.

Giguere said the game may have been the Ducks' best all season.

"There's no games that are flawless, but tonight was as close as we could play," Giguere said. "The second period, I thought, was our best period all year. We controlled the play, spent most of the period in their zone. When you do that, things are going to go your way.

"It's nice to have a two-goal lead. And after we got the two-goal lead, it was nice to see that we kept working and going after them. Too many times this year we've have two-goal leads and three-goal leads and sat back and we saw the other team gain some momentum. Tonight, we didn't allow that.

Anaheim coach Randy Carlyle was also happy to get a lead after a number of close games.

"You have to credit our power play with going out and taking the opportunity that we were presented with," Carlyle said. "It's more of that type of intensity and overall play that we're looking for, especially in our building because we've been able to do that historically here with this group."

Laperriere said the Avalanche gave the Ducks too many chances.

"We tried to put pressure as much as we can, but they have a lot of skills out there," Laperriere said. "The bottom line is they didn't play that great and we played really bad. If we played a little bit better we would've been in the game a little bit more. On the road and in a building like this, you just can't open it up, and we just got in a penalty problem right from the get go. You can't do that against a team like that.

"Right now we're struggling putting a couple of wins together and when you want to do that on the road, you've got to simplify your game, but still work hard. For a moment, we did work hard, but to beat a team like that, you've got to do that for 60 minutes."

Selanne gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 10:19 of the first period. Ryan Getzlaf fed Corey Perry, who sent a pass through the legs of defenseman Scott Hannan to Selanne, who fired the puck into an open right side of the net. Getzlaf notched an assist for the sixth consecutive game.

Selanne scored again with 8:43 remaining in the third period, one-timing a pass from defenseman Scott Niedermayer from the slot past goaltender Andrew Raycroft, who relieved Peter Budaj to start the session.

Kunitz made it 2-0 after wristing a shot past Budaj from the right faceoff circle at 13:39 of the first, three seconds after another Colorado penalty had expired. Brendan Morrison sent a pass from behind the net to Kunitz, who squeezed a shot between Budaj and the near post.

"They took advantage of two power plays in the first period," Colorado coach Tony Granato said. "I know the second one wasn't a power play, but it was a result of pressure from their power play. They scored just as our guy came out. So the first two goals were certainly a direct result of the power play.

Pronger scored on a slap shot at 6:51 of the second.

Laperriere redirected defenseman Jean-Michael Liles' slap shot past Giguere just 2:13 into the third, but Colorado could not draw any closer.

"We've just been struggling to score goals lately," defenseman Ruslan Salei said. "I would say the last seven to 10 games. We just have to bear down. We're getting our chances. It's just a matter of time when we start scoring again. Until then, it's pretty tough to win games when you score one or fewer goals. It's too much relying on your goalie."

"There's no excuse, we've got to play better," Liles said. "It's pretty obvious right now that scoring is tough to come by at the moment. We've got to find a way to score more.

Colorado was without captain Joe Sakic, who has a back injury, and left wing Wojtek Wolski and defenseman Adam Foote, who were injured Saturday against Los Angeles.

"At the end of the day, it's not about who they have on the ice and who they bring, and what they bring. The team we have, it's about what we bring," Giguere said. "Tonight, I don't think there are too many teams that would have beat. We just played a good solid game. When we play like that, we're going to be a very difficult team to beat."