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Getzlaf, Selanne lift Ducks over Flames

Nov 27, 2006 - 3:49 AM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Ryan Getzlaf's timing was impeccable to keep the Anaheim Ducks on top of the Western Conference.

Getzlaf snapped a third-period tie and Teemu Selanne scored twice as the Ducks won for the fourth time in five games with a 5-3 victory over the Calgary Flames.

Raising its home mark to 12-1-4, Anaheim avenged a 3-0 defeat to Calgary on November 10, which was the team's first regulation loss after recording points in each of the first 16 games to set a league record.

"This is a happy place for us," Selanne said. "This is our barn. We want to be homers, big-time homers. We want to take advantage of our home building and the fans, get the crowd behind us. That's what we did."

"I think them giving us a loss, it's not a bad spot to get the team that beat you and certainly to form a rivalry against that team, having played them last year in the playoffs," said Ducks defenseman Chris Pronger, who had two assists. "It was a big game for us."

Getzlaf netted his ninth goal of the campaign on a power play with 10:44 remaining with a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle that got past netminder Jamie McLennan, who made just his second appearance of the season, to break a 2-2 tie.

Selanne gave the Ducks a 2-1 lead with his ninth goal at 5:13 of the second period on a backhander from the left circle inside the left goalpost. It was his 600th point with Anaheim, leaving him second behind Paul Kariya (669) in franchise history.

Selanne added an insurance tally with 3:50 remaining to raise his career goal total to 502. The Finn has two multi-goal games this season and has collected five tallies and five assists in his last five outings.

"Pronger made an unbelievable pass (on the first goal)," Selanne said. "It's so much fun that when you get open, you have guys who can make the pass, who want to make a pass and they can see the game so well. When you have guys who can make good passes, it makes the game so much easier."

"It just rolled over," McLennan said. "A nice move by him. He put it over my stick. He doesn't have (502) goals in this league by accident."

The Ducks opened the scoring at 8:39 of the first period as blue-liner Francois Beauchemin found Samuel Pahlsson, whose wrister from the left circle beat McLennan to the glove side.

Calgary answered nearly three minutes later when defenseman Dion Phaneuf faked a slap shot before sliding the puck in front to Kristian Huselius, who lifted it under the crossbar past netminder Michael Wall.

Huselius netted his second goal of the game at 4:23 of the third when he chipped in a rebound of Byron Ritchie's shot in front for his first multi-goal game of the campaign.

"It's great to score a goal and you get confidence by that," Huselius said. "Every forward on this team is good, so you just have to go out and work on it and keep working hard for 60 minutes. That's how we think in this group."

Recalled early Sunday from Portland of the American Hockey League, Wall made 19 saves in his NHL debut.

"We got some timely goals and everything just came together," Wall said. "I just tried to keep my game simple and stop that first shot. It's easy to relax after you get that first one. It's one of those things that really gets you into the game."

"He's obviously nervous to start the game," Pronger said. "Who wouldn't be in his first NHL game? But he settled down and made a couple great stops in the first period. It gave us a little life after that. We really used that as motivation to continue to push forward."

Daymond Langkow scored with 21 seconds left and McLennan stopped 34 shots for the Flames, who have lost for the third time in four contests after a six-game winning streak.

"Specialty teams were huge," Flames coach Jim Playfair said. "We gave up a big goal when they were on the power play. We gave up three even-strength goals and that's acceptable. But what wasn't acceptable was our specialty teams."