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Penner's offense helps Ducks hold off Lightning

Dec 10, 2006 - 3:56 AM TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Dustin Penner did his best to help keep the Anaheim Ducks soaring away from home.

Penner scored twice and Chris Kunitz and Teemu Selanne each had a goal and an assist as the Ducks held on for a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Selanne netted his team-leading 17th goal and Shawn Thornton added two assists for Anaheim, which tied the franchise mark of five straight road wins.

"The Lightning are a tough team and they have a lot of speed as well," Selanne said. "We knew coming in, it wasn't going to be easy. But this team has shown its potential a lot. These guys know how to win."

Penner, the second-leading goal scorer among rookies behind Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin, opened the scoring with his 11th of the season just over three minutes into the contest.

Todd Marchant gathered in a loose puck near the red line and raced in on a 2-on-none. After drawing Marc Denis toward him, Marchant made a quick pass to Penner, who scored into the vacant net at 3:07 for a 1-0 lead.

"This team has so much talent, so much speed and so many ways to beat you," Penner said. "I just try to fit in and give these guys my best and do the things that it takes to help us win games."

The 6-4, 245-pound right wing completed his second career two-goal game with a power-play tally with 9:02 left in the second period, giving Anaheim a 2-1 edge.

Selanne scored his fourth goal in three games and 13th in as many contests less than two minutes later and Kunitz tallied 2:26 into the third to open a 4-2 lead for the Ducks, who lead the league with 52 points.

"They came at us pretty hard and we weathered the storm," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "Pretty early in the hockey game, we found a way to get some goals, some timely goals."

"The Ducks are a very experienced team and their puck control is outstanding," Lightning captain Tim Taylor said. "They just know how to move that puck around the blue line and get the puck where it needs to be to the right guys."

Jean-Sebastien Giguere stopped 24 shots, including 14 in the third period, en route to his league-leading 19th victory.

"It's a big two points, especially with this building and them coming off a big victory the other night," Giguere said.

"G came up big, as usual," Anaheim defenseman Chris Pronger said. "He made huge saves, and it definitely gave us some life at the end."

Eric Perrin, Ruslan Fedotenko and Brad Richards scored and Denis made 21 saves for Tampa Bay, which has lost five of its last six games.

"We have to take advantage of our opportunities against good teams," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "We had our chances."