ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Cutter Gauthier scored twice in a span of just over three minutes in the first period, backup Ville Husso stopped 42 shots and the Anaheim Ducks beat the New York Islanders 5-1 on Wednesday night.
Beckett Sennecke, Ryan Poehling and Frank Vatrano also had goals to help Anaheim to its 13th win in 16 games.
David Rittich had 20 saves for the Islanders, who had their five-game winning streak snapped despite outshooting the Ducks 43-25. Anders Lee scored the 304th goal of his career, tying Clark Gillies for the fourth-most in franchise history.
Husso, who stopped 16 shots in the first period and 13 in both the second and third, had a timely performance amid speculation the Ducks are pursuing a backup goalie behind Lukas Dostal before Friday’s trade deadline.
He turned away a flurry of shots after New York pulled Rittich with 8½ minutes left in the game. Vatrano, who missed the previous 22 games because of an upper-body injury, scored into an empty net with 4:11 remaining to seal Anaheim’s win.
Lee banged the rebound of Tony DeAngelo’s shot from near the blue line past Husso for a 1-0 lead 4:58 into the game.
But the Ducks scored three times in the final 7:04 of the period for a 3-1 lead. Gauthier took a pass from Sennecke on a power play and snapped a shot from the left circle past Rittich.
Just 3:09 later, the 22-year-old Swede took a pass from Leo Carlsson and scored from the right circle for his team-leading 31st goal to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead with 3:55 left.
Sennecke snapped the rebound of Ian Moore’s shot into a nearly open net from the doorstep for his 20th goal.
The Islanders had erased 2-0 deficits in each of their last three wins, but the Ducks kept them off the board in part by killing three penalties in the second period.
Poehling squeezed a backhand tip-in just past Rittich’s skate and over the goal line 2:11 into the third for his seventh goal and a 4-1 lead for Anaheim.
Up next
Ducks: Host Montreal Canadiens on Friday night.
Islanders: At Los Angeles on Thursday night.
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