NEW YORK (Ticker) -- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim are hoping this signals a turnaround. The New York Rangers are hoping they just ran into a hot goaltender.
Martin Gerber made 38 saves and Sergei Fedorov collected two assists as the Ducks opened a season-high six-game road trip with a 3-1 victory over the Rangers, who had a four-game unbeaten streak stopped.
Looking to recover from a slow start, the Ducks played a physical game, singling out Alexei Kovalev. But they also got timely saves from Gerber and took advantage of a couple of breaks to post their second road win of the season and third in five games (3-1-1) following a 0-4-0-1 start.
"The best player in the game tonight was Gerber, no question about it," Ducks coach Mike Babcock said.
Gerber got a second straight start in favor of Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who has a 3.14 goals-against average and has lost five of his first six decisions.
"I didn't expect to get this much action early, but it's building my confidence by the coaches putting trust in me," Gerber said. "They got a lot of shots, but the guys did a great job in front clearing the rebounds, so there weren't many second chances."
"If our goalie stops five or six good chances a game, that'll give us a big jump on every team," Fedorov said. "We've been playing 40-45 minutes of good hockey. Now we have to put up to 60 minutes. Consistency is a tough job, but you have work hard at it and stay focused."
Anaheim's first break came midway through the first period as defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh was slow to join the rush but caught goaltender Mike Dunham out of position to get the Ducks on the board. Another came midway through the second as Rob Niedermayer set a screen in front of the net, then tipped Fedorov's pass from the point past Dunham to make it 3-0.
Gerber did the rest, especially in the third period, when the Rangers outshot the Ducks, 18-5. The Swiss goalie was less than four minutes from his second shutout of the season before Kovalev's bouncing slap shot trickled through.
The Rangers were trying to go unbeaten in their first five home games for the first time since 1992-93. But they remained the only NHL team without a power-play goal, going 0-for-4 to fall to 0-for-30 this season.
"I was happy with the offense from a shots standpoint," New York coach Glen Sather said. "But you can't be satisfied with the end result. Obviously, we still continued to struggle on the power play."
New York showed signs of life with wins over Detroit and Florida and allowed just one power-play goal during a season-opening six-game homestand.
But this was a frustrating night for the Rangers, who were facing Gerber for the first time. They got most of the good scoring chances in the opening 20 minutes, but Gerber turned away attempts by Mark Messier and Chris Simon.
The Ducks got on the board as Ozolinsh warded off a check, got past Jamie Lundmark and floated a wrister by Dunham, who was screened by defenseman Tom Poti.
Anaheim's struggling power play got going. Moments after getting leveled by Bobby Holik in the corner, Stanislav Chistov moved the puck to Fedorov at the left point. Fedorov slid a cross-ice pass to defenseman Niclas Havelid, whose slap shot made it through traffic for the Ducks' sixth power-play tally of the season.
"The first one was like a knuckleball. It just seemed to dip," Dunham said. "The second was through a screen and it found its way in. And the third one hit Niedermayer and one of our defenseman and then went in.
"This was one of the games where the bounces were funny. They threw the puck at the net and it found its way in the back. We really didn't give them much. They just got bounces that just went in."
The Ducks managed just 10 shots the rest of the way and Gerber had to turn aside 27, including several during a Rangers' power play.
"We've been a very interesting group in that we have been unable to sustain for a full 60 minutes," Babcock said. "We came out and played pretty systematically, then we got tight and stopped skating."
