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Saturday, Nov. 18 9:00pm ET
Last-place Ducks shock Pacific leaders | |||||
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PHOENIX (AP) -- The antidote for a losing streak can be as simple as playing your old team. Jim Cummins and Teemu Selanne were two of four Anaheim players who had a goal and an assist as the Mighty Ducks snapped their five-game losing streak with a 6-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday night. Cummins, whom the Coyotes traded to Montreal in June 1999, scored Anaheim's second goal and assisted on the decisive goal by Tony Hrkac later in the second period. "That was real big for us," he said. "Our last four games, we played Colorado twice and Detroit, so we knew we were playing the best teams in the league, including Phoenix. And except for tonight we spotted those teams two goals. It was nice to get out to a two-goal lead." Hrkac and Mike Leclerc had a goal and an assist, and Marty McInnis and Antii Aalto also scored for Anaheim, which was winless in its previous eight games (0-6-2) and had gone nearly five periods without a goal. "We knew we had to turn this around pretty quickly," Selanne said. "Our GM (Pierre Gauthier) had a long talk with us, and I think it was really good motivation. We played really hard and got a lot of guys involved in the scoring. It was exactly the game we were looking for." Guy Hebert had 22 saves, playing flawlessly at even strength but giving up power-play goals to Phoenix's Jeremy Roenick and Travis Green. Hrkac and Aalto scored on rebounds 44 seconds apart in the second period, sending the Ducks to a 4-1 lead. Hrkac was waiting when Cummins' shot hit the post, and he snapped the carom past Sean Burke on the stick side. Aalto was in the circle when a shot by Ladislav Kohn turned into a hard rebound that he blasted behind Burke with 9:09 left in the period. In the third, Green got Phoenix within two goals when he beat Hebert from the circle 3:17 into the third, but Selanne, a former first-round draft pick of the Winnipeg Jets before the franchise moved to Phoenix, and Leclerc took turns assisting on the other's insurance goals. Leclerc wrapped up the scoring with 7:04 to play. "It wasn't just the defense," Coyotes captain Keith Tkachuk said. "It was everyone as a unit. We were just playing sloppy." The loss, in Burke's worst outing of the season, ended a three-game unbeaten streak by the Coyotes. Burke, the NHL's player of the month in October, allowed a maximum of three goals just three times in 16 previous starts, but yielded six in 31 shots this time. "We knew they were desperate, and we didn't rise to the challenge," Burke said. The Ducks were shut out their last game, but quickly turned that into a bad memory by scoring twice in their first five shots. McInnis nailed a wrist shot from the slot at 1:17, beating Burke on the glove side. Cummins also went to Burke's glove side after another pass across the slot -- this one from Hrkac -- and made it 2-0 just 2:48 in. "Everybody was ready to do a lot of little things in the first period, and that set the tone," Anaheim coach Craig Hartsburg said. It took their first power play for the Coyotes to snap out of their offensive slump and they wasted no time capitalizing. Jyrki Lumme collected the puck off the faceoff and fired a slap shot that bounced out of Hebert's glove and out to Roenick, who snapped a wrist shot between Hebert and the near post with 4:40 left in the first period. The goal came five seconds into the advantage the Coyotes received when Anaheim's Ruslan Salei roughed Tkachuk. Game notesMcInnis' goal, his ninth in 18 games, left him one shy of his total for last season. Cummins and Hrkac, who had three and four goals last season, respectively, each scored his fourth. ... The Ducks were first in the NHL in power plays on the road, but went scoreless in six. ... The Coyotes lost despite getting two key offensive players back -- Roenick, who sat out one game because of a concussion, and power-play quarterback Joe Juneau, who missed 10 games after straining a shoulder on Oct. 28. ... It was the Coyotes' first loss this season when Roenick had a goal (6-1-3). ... Selanne has 24 points in 23 games vs. Phoenix. | ALSO SEE NHL Scoreboard Anaheim Clubhouse Phoenix Clubhouse Bruins deal Pahlsson to Anaheim for Traverse and Nazarov
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Anaheim 6 AUDIO/VIDEO   Jim Cummins beats Sean Burke for Anaheim's second goal of the game.avi: 601 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 The Ducks' Guy Hebert makes a great save on Trevor Letowski.avi: 564 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 | |||||