Sports

Perry's OT Goal Lifts Ducks Over Canucks, 4-3

January 5, 2014 / 8:20 PM PST / KCAL News

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Corey Perry has made a living by scoring timely goals.

Perry scored his NHL-leading eighth winner of the season with 1.3 seconds on the clock in overtime, giving the Anaheim Ducks a come-from-behind 4-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night.

The 2011 MVP has a league-best 30 winning goals since the start of the 2010-11 season.

"You could see it on his face every time he came to the bench. He was getting so frustrated," coach Bruce Boudreau said. "The last game and this game, he was getting so many good looks. Hopefully that'll break the ice and he'll do what he normally does."

The Ducks went on the power play at 3:54 of overtime when defenseman Kevin Bieksa was called for hooking. Ryan Getzlaf passed the puck to Perry from the blue line for a shot that beat rookie goalie Eddie Lack for his team-high 23rd goal.

"I got the monkey off my back," Perry said. "I saw a couple seconds on the clock, yelled for the puck going to the net and knew I had to shoot right away. It probably fooled him and found a way to go in."

The Ducks, off to a franchise-best 31-8-5 start and 17-0-2 at Honda Center, are the only team without a regulation loss at home. Anaheim is also the third club to open a season with a home point streak of 19 or more games, joining San Jose (2008-09) and Philadelphia (1979-80).

The Ducks have won 13 of 14 overall since losing back-to-back shootouts against San Jose and Los Angeles.

Bonino tied it with 1:27 left in regulation. Saku Koivu and Matt Beleskey scored in the second, and Jonas Hiller stopped 17 shots to extend his club-record and career-best winning streak to 11.

Ryan Kesler and Henrik Sedin scored power play goals 2 minutes apart in the first, and Bieksa scored in the third for the Canucks.

Lack made a career-high 45 saves, one night after Roberto Luongo had 45 in a loss to Los Angeles in his return following a three-game absence with a groin injury.

"He brought it to another level tonight," Canucks coach John Tortorella said. "You try to find some good stuff (from a game like this), and that is certainly some real good stuff there."

Luongo sat out, and Lack's backup was 43-year-old Rob Laurie -- who has never appeared in an NHL game and hasn't played professionally since 2002. The Southern California resident was summoned on an emergency basis.

The Canucks also lost both ends of a Los-Angeles-Anaheim back-to-back set on Nov. 9-10.

"You play good teams like Anaheim and L.A. and you learn a lot of lessons," defenseman Dan Hamhuis said. "They expose things in your game that are not solid. We saw that in L.A., and we talked about that this morning.

"Both games we had early leads and then we sat back. That is the biggest thing as to why we are giving up so many shots. We are playing not to lose, and we have to start playing to win at all times."

Anaheim outshot Vancouver 40-7 over the second and third periods. Kyle Palmieri blocked Jason Garrison's one-timer from just inside the Anaheim blue line and carried the puck into the Vancouver zone, where he made a backhanded pass from the left circle into the slot. Beleskey backhanded it past Lack at 16:38 of the second to make it 2-all.

The Canucks regained the lead when Bieksa's wrist shot from just inside the blue line got past a screened Hiller 66 seconds into the third. But the Ducks pulled even again as Daniel Winnik stole Garrison's attempted clearing pass and fed Bonino for the goal.

"We've beaten ourselves a little bit," Tortorella said. "We've had a lot of struggles in a lot of different areas the past couple of games. We have to keep our heads, and keep on working at our game."

Vancouver, 2 for 23 on the power play over its previous eight games, took a 1-0 lead 9:40 in with Kesler's 17th goal, scored one minute after Perry tripped Jannik Hansen.

The Ducks were short-handed again less than a minute later after a penalty for too many men on the ice. Sedin scored his 10th goal on a deflection of Garrison's shot.

"You can't do that against good teams. But we never backed down and we kept grinding," Perry said. "Those things are what character teams are made of. We're going to keep coming at you."

The Canucks, who began the day with the best penalty-killing percentage in the league at 89.4, thwarted Anaheim's first two power plays before Perry's winner. The Ducks are 2 for 34 over their last 11 games, including a season-worst 0 for 8 in Friday's win over Edmonton.