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Selanne, Giguere lift Ducks over Sharks

Nov 22, 2006 - 5:47 AM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Teemu Selanne and Jean-Sebastien Giguere did their best to allow the Anaheim Ducks to continue to break out of their slump.

Selanne scored twice to move to the brink of 500 goals and Giguere stopped 23 shots to lift the Ducks to a 5-0 victory over their Pacific Division rival San Jose Sharks.

In a battle of the top teams in the Western Conference, the Ducks registered a convincing triumph in this round. The clubs meet seven more times this season.

"It's one game," Anaheim defenseman Scott Niedermayer said. "I don't think either team is going get ahead of themselves. It's only one game, and there's lots of hockey to be played. We know that and I think they do too."

"Everybody says they are the best team in the league, obviously tonight they really gave it to us," San Jose center Joe Thornton said. "We need to bounce right back and play better against the (Los Angeles) Kings (on Wednesday). We still think about this, we still have a long way to go, but we really need to bounce right back and come out and have a good game tomorrow night."

Thornton tried to keep the events in perspective.

"It was the most important game of tonight, tomorrow night is going to be the next most important game," he said. "We're going to see a lot of each other, in the regular season and hopefully in the postseason. They took it tonight, hopefully we can take a couple coming up here in December."

The Sharks host the Ducks on December 16 and 26.

Selanne's first tally padded Anaheim's lead to 3-0 at 6:28 of the third period. He took a pass from Andy McDonald behind the San Jose net and poked the puck past Sharks goaltender Evgeni Nabokov.

"Andy McDonald made a perfect pass, and I just put it through the five-hole," Selanne said.

The right wing scored his seventh of the season and 499th career when he swooped in and beat Nabokov from close range with 2:18 left in the third period to cap the scoring.

"I knew exactly what (Nabokov) was gonna do, and I put in under him," Selanne said. "We knew that this would be a big test for our hockey club. We just want to keep pushing forward."

Defenseman Chris Pronger gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 7:13 of the opening session when his shot from the point sailed past Nabokov. Ryan Getzlaf created a 2-0 edge with 2:17 left in the period when he banged in a rebound on the power play.

Blue-liner Francois Beauchemin scored the other goal for Anaheim, which went 2-for-5 on the power play in winning its second straight game following a stretch of three losses in four contests.

Nabokov recorded 29 saves for San Jose, which went 0-for-3 with the extra skater.

"It's not tough to see that many shots, that's what I'm there for," Nabokov said. "But I don't think we played well. That's where it's kind of frustrating. Tomorrow is another game, we have to get ready for it."

Sharks right wing Jonathan Cheechoo, the reigning Maurice Richard Trophy winner, missed his second straight contest after suffering a lower leg injury in a 4-3 win at Colorado on Wednesday.