ANAHEIM, Calif. – Bobby Ryan, Ryan Getzlaf and Saku Koivu scored during a 6:51 span of the second period to break open a scoreless game, and the Anaheim Ducks overcame two goals by Sidney Crosby to beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 on Friday night.
Lubomir Visnovsky had two assists and Jonas Hiller made 30 saves, helping the Ducks win consecutive games for the first time this season. Hiller has allowed no more than two goals in any of his last six starts after struggling through his first five starts with a 4.06 goals-against average.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 16 saves for Pittsburgh in the only meeting of the season between the teams. Fleury is 1-6, while backup Brent Johnson is 5-1-1 with a 1.70 GAA.
During a scoreless and hard-hitting first period in which Pittsburgh defensemen Kris Letang and Brooks Orpik hit the post about 3 minutes apart with screened wrist shots, Anaheim's best scoring chance came about 4½ minutes before the intermission. Letang attempted an outlet pass from behind his own net and put it right onto the stick of Ryan, who had Fleury at his mercy in the slot and missed wide right with a 15-foot wrist shot.
Ryan eventually opened the scoring at 7:35 of the second with a 40-foot wrist shot that beat Fleury to the stick side. Getzlaf, whose overtime goal gave the Ducks a 3-2 win over Tampa Bay on Wednesday, made it 2-0 at 12:22 of the period with his sixth of the season after Corey Perry set him up in front of the net.
Ryan also got an assist on the play, giving the Ducks' top line 17 goals and 44 points in the last 11 games. The trio did not have a point in the first three games of the season.
Koivu scored about 2 minutes later, converting a rebound of Visnovsky's wrist shot. Selanne, playing in his 1,200th game, also was credited with an assist that gave him 1,275 career points and edged him past Al MacInnis into sole possession of 33rd place.
Crosby, whose career-high 51 goals last season tied him with Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos for the NHL lead, snapped a five-game drought after Hiller stopped Pittsburgh's first 16 shots on net. The power-play goal came at 17:27 of the period, on a tip-in of Letang's shot from the top of the left circle while Selanne was off for holding Evgeni Malkin.
The goal ended Pittsburgh's 0-for-29 drought on the power play going back to Crosby's goal Oct. 18 against Ottawa. The Penguins' captain added his eighth of the season with 16:12 left in the third period after Visnovsky tried to clear a rebound of Pascal Dupuis' shot and inadvertently hit a teammate with the puck.
Penguins defenseman Deryk Engelland, who won a couple of fights earlier this season against Toronto's Colton Orr and Philadelphia's Jody Shelley, was felled by one punch from Ducks enforcer George Parros after they dropped the gloves on a faceoff deep in the Pittsburgh zone just 1:42 into the contest.
NOTES: Penguins assistant coach Tony Granato is looking forward to Monday when sister Cammi, the captain of the 1998 U.S. team that won the first woman's gold medal in Olympic history, will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in a group that includes Dino Ciccarelli and Detroit executive Jim Devellano. ... Crosby's goals were his first in five career games against Anaheim. The only teams he hasn't scored against are Chicago, Edmonton, St. Louis and San Jose. Crosby sat out Thursday's practice because of a bruised right hand, the result of a fight with Dallas' Matt Niskanen. ... Dupuis played in his 600th NHL game after missing the loss at Dallas to be with wife Carole-Lyne for the birth of daughter Lola.
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