The Anaheim Ducks‘ penalty kill has been able to keep opponents in check

ANAHEIM James Neal Jersey , Calif. (AP) The Anaheim Ducks‘ penalty kill has been able to keep opponents in check.They can score goals as well as they can prevent them, a knack they showed against the Columbus Blue Jackets to bolster Anaheim’s playoff chances.Andrew Cogliano and Josh Manson scored 1:27 apart in the second period and the Ducks defeated the Blue Jackets 4-2 on Friday night.Cogliano put Anaheim in front 2-1 at 11:17 with his 15th short-handed goal for the Ducks, one shy of tying Paul Kariya’s team record. Artemi Panarin couldn’t collect a pass by Pierre-Luc Dubois from the neutral zone back into the Columbus end while under pressure from Cogliano, giving the Anaheim forward a breakaway. He beat Sergei Bobrovsky between his legs.It was the Ducks’ ninth short-handed goal this season. Anaheim is tied with Florida and Buffalo for the NHL lead.Manson scored shortly after leaving the penalty box, making it 3-1 at 12:44. Collecting Francois Beauchemin’s clearance at the Columbus blue line, Manson scored on the breakaway with a backhand by faking Bobrovsky into doing the splits.”It’s like what you dream about when you’re in the penalty box,” said Manson, who scored his fifth goal.The Ducks have killed off 29 of 30 penalties in their last 10 games Jonathan Marchessault Jersey , the best mark in the NHL since Feb. 9. That includes 20 straight kills, and they kept the Blue Jackets scoreless on their two power-play chances.”It’s getting to the time of the season where you can’t make many mistakes and you need to be good. You need to be good every night, so I think we’re all holding ourselves to a little bit higher standard and putting a little pressure on ourselves `cause we want to have a good run here,” Ducks goalie John Gibson said.Gibson made 34 saves after missing three games with a lower-body injury. Rickard Rakell and Cam Fowler each had a goal and an assist for the Ducks, who are 5-1-1 in their last seven games.Sonny Milano and Zach Werenski scored for the Blue Jackets, who have lost three in a row on the road. Bobrovsky stopped 31 shots.Anaheim holds the second wild card in the Western Conference and is one point behind Los Angeles for third place in the Pacific Division.Columbus is tied with Carolina for the second wild card in the East and is seven points behind Pittsburgh for third in the Metropolitan Division.Milano scored first for the Blue Jackets at 12:28 of the first period, but Rakell tied it 1:38 later with a backhand for his fourth goal in two games.Fowler gave the Ducks a 4-1 lead at 16:05 of the third, and Werenski scored at 17:43 to make it 4-2.Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella couldn’t explain the brief breakdown on the power play in the second. Special-teams issues have been a recurring trend for Columbus Marc-Andre Fleury Jersey , which gave up decisive power-play and short-handed goals in its loss at the Los Angeles Kings to open a three-game California road trip.”We played good enough to lose, and in that little section of the game, that minute or so in the game . I thought we were playing really well to that point. Yeah, I don’t know what else to tell you. That changes games,” Tortorella said.NOTES: Ducks C Ryan Getzlaf missed the game with the flu. … Blue Jackets C Alexander Wennberg did not play because of an upper-body injury. … Chris Kelly had one shot and played 9:27 in his Anaheim debut. Kelly signed with the Ducks as a free agent Monday after helping Canada win the bronze medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics. … Panarin’s point streak ended at six games.UP NEXTBlue Jackets: Visit the San Jose Sharks on Sunday night.Ducks: Host the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.— The new-look Montreal Canadiens, an early season surprise in the NHL, will make their home debut Thursday when they host the Los Angeles Kings (1-1-1) at Bell Centre.The Canadiens are 1-0-1 after starting the season on the road with a 3-2 loss in overtime against the Toronto Maple Leafs and an overwhelmed the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 on Saturday.The Canadiens, forecast by many to finish near the bottom of the Eastern Conference even before they traded top goal scorers captain Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk Nate Schmidt Jersey , have used a speedy forechecking game to pressure the opposition, cause turnovers and create scoring opportunities.Article continues below ...Forward Paul Byron, picked up on waivers in the 2015-16 season from the Calgary Flames, led the Canadiens with two goals and an assist in the win over the Penguins.“That’s the way we want to play. We want to play with pace,” Byron told NHL.com. “We want to move pucks up quick. We want to make sure that with our group, with the talent we have and the skating ability we have, that we can play that fast game. So far, it’s working for us.”“I think we’re working pretty well as a unit http://www.goldenknightsshoponline.com/authentic-oscar-dansk-jersey ,” Canadiens goaltender Carey Price told NHL.com. “We’re not showing a ton of panic out there when things are getting tough. We have guys that are all playing really well. There’s no real secret to it.”Canadiens fans will get their first regular-season look at 18-year-old rookie Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who was selected with the No. 3 pick in last summer’s draft.Kotkaniemi has one assist in two games as he adjusts to life in the NHL. He’s been getting some tutoring from his veteran teammates.“I think faceoffs are the area that I need most to improve on, so I’m working at it every day,” Kotkaniemi told montrealcanadiens.com. “We have older guys that help me a lot. They are teaching me new tricks every day and I try to use those.”They must have helped because Kotkamiemi’s success in the faceoff circle jumped from 14.3 percent against the Maple Leafs to 66.7 percent against the Penguins.Kings coach Jon Stevens didn’t like the effort from his players in the first two periods in a 2-1 loss against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.“I thought the third period, we started to play on our toes a little more and we were able to generate a little more of an attack,” Stevens told NHL.com. “But prior to that (we) totally played the game on our heels, backing up retreating instead of getting after it.”Kings forward Ilya Kovalchuk, who returned to the NHL after five years playing in the Kontinental Hockey League Authentic Oscar Lindberg Jersey , scored his first goal with the Kings against the Jets. Kovalchuk, 35, signed a three-year contract worth $18.75 million with the Kings. He had 816 points in 816 games in the NHL with the Atlanta Thrashers and the New Jersey Devils before leaving for the KHL.The goal against the Jets was the 417th of Kovalchuk’s NHL career.“I prefer to win than score goals,” Kovalchuk told NHL.com. “It wasn’t enough, so we will be better next game.”The Kings power play could use Kovalchuk’s touch: it is 0-for-10 in the first three games of the season.