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Visnovsky, Oilers keep Ducks winless

Oct 16, 2008 - 6:19 AM By Craig Shultz PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- The Edmonton Oilers' defensemen played a big part in the offense, depriving the Anaheim Ducks of their first win of the new season.

Sheldon Souray and Lubomir Visnovsky scored the tying and winning goals, respectively, as the Oilers claimed a 3-2 victory over the Ducks on Wednesday.

After Anaheim scored two straight goals to take a 2-1 lead, Souray evened the contest with 97 seconds left in the middle period. After Andrew Cogliano sent the puck behind the net, Robert Nilsson centered a pass to Souray, who banked a shot off the right goalpost and netminder Jonas Hiller's left skate for his first goal of the season.

"It's just nice to contribute, and it's nice to have everyone contributing," Souray said. "Sometimes you get goals from unlikely places, and you're going to need that throughout the year. It was nice that the D was able to chip in.

"I try not to hang around the net too much, since I'm a defenseman, but just seeing an opportunity, and Bobby Nilsson made a good play. When we have opportunities to be offensive in their zone, we've got to take them, so it was just a case of trying to seize an opportunity."

Visnovsky registered the game-winner 2:41 into the final session with his first tally of the campaign.

With Ducks right wing Corey Perry in the penalty box for goalie interference, Visnovsky fired a slap shot from just inside the blue line past Hiller, who was screened by a pair of Oilers.

"It was my first shot," Visnovsky said. "The coach, after the second period, said to take the responsibility and shoot. I was open wide, so I tried to shoot, and the puck stayed in there. I'm very happy that it was my first shot and it stayed in there."

Visnovsky's goal helped Edmonton improve to 9-3-1 in its last 13 regular-season meetings with Anaheim, which dropped to 0-4-0 for the first time since 2003-04.

"It's a good start for our team, the first two games," Visnovsky said. "It's very important for us because we need every point. It's very important for the confidence of our team and the young players. We played not as good in the first period, but we played better and better together as the game went on."

"We played a pretty solid game, I thought," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "In the third, even when we took the lead, we didn't panic. We had a number of chances to widen the lead, which is a really encouraging sign."

A shot from the left point by blue-liner Denis Grebeshkov banked in off Shawn Horcoff for the Oilers' first tally and Mathieu Garon finished with 33 saves.

Garon and MacTavish both believed the game changed after 30 minutes.

"I think tonight, the second half (of the game) was a big difference," Garon said. "The first half, you have to give them credit, they played really good. The second half, we kind of took it from them and we played a lot better."

"We got playing at about the halfway point of the game," MacTavish said. "I think we had five shots with 13 minutes left to play in the second, and we ended up with 17 at the end of the second."

Defenseman Kent Huskins and Rob Niedermayer tallied for Anaheim while Hiller, making his first start of 2008-09, stopped 25 shots.

"There's peaks and valleys in a season, and we're in a valley right now that we have to dig ourselves out of," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "Things don't go your way when you're in one of these. The only way you're going to change it, collectively, everybody has to pull on the rope the same way. If we come back with more efforts like we had tonight, I'm sure we'll have our fair share of success."

Anaheim captain Scott Niedermayer agreed the team's effort was better.

"It's a good first step," Niedermayer said. "It will take more than that, obviously, (judging) by the result tonight, but at this point, that's what we have to build on. It was a better effort tonight. Not good enough, but better."

Huskins scored his first goal of the season 6:32 into the first period, beating Garon with a slap shot from the top of the left faceoff circle. Huskins' tally came on the one-year anniversary of his first NHL goal, which he scored against Detroit.

The Niedermayer brothers teamed up to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead 4:10 into the second period. Scott dug the puck out of a crowd along the right wing boards and passed to Rob, who spun around in the right circle and snapped a shot past Garon.

Anaheim already is eight points behind Pacific Division leader San Jose, which visits Friday.

"It's a big game, there's no question," Ducks center Brendan Morrison said. "They're off to a good start and we're not. If we want to get where we want to be at the end of the year, at the top of our division, these points now are just as important as points in April. We have to start winning games."