Ducks Overcome Blues

Considering that they had not lost all season when they’ve led after two periods, the St. Louis Blues had the Mighty Ducks right where they wanted Sunday at the Arrowhead Pond.

With a one-goal lead at the start of the third, St. Louis was in great position to complete a Southern California sweep, but the Ducks had other ideas as Jason Krog and Niclas Havelid scored third-period goals to give Anaheim a 2-1 victory in front of an announced crowd of 15,414.

The victory was the Ducks’ second consecutive come-from-behind victory in two games as they dropped the Blues’ record to 17-1-0-2 when they’ve led heading into the third period. St. Louis defeated the Kings, 2-1, Saturday at Staples Center.

“This is a good win for us because we kept being patient,” said goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who made 18 saves to improve to 16-14-4 this season. “They didn’t give us very much. They are a very experienced team, and they don’t give up a lot of scoring opportunities. But we knew that they played last night, so we figured at some point we’d have a good chance and that’s what we did.”

St. Louis, which scored the first two goals against the Kings on Saturday, did not get off to such a strong a start against the Ducks.

Although the Blues outshot Anaheim, 6-4, in the first period, they didn’t have too many good chances against Giguere, whose best save of the period came when he stuffed a Cory Stillman breakaway.

After a scoreless opening period, the Ducks threatened early in the second with St. Louis winger Dallas Drake in the penalty box for charging.

Anaheim’s power play was sharp and came close to scoring a couple of times, but St. Louis goalie Brent Johnson answered the challenge with four big saves on Petr Sykora, Adam Oates, Paul Kariya and Matt Cullen.

The hard-working Blues, who had picked up at least a point in nine of their last 11 to move within two points of Detroit in the Central Division before Sunday, began to take control of the game midway into the second period.

St. Louis took a 1-0 lead, thanks to a heads-up defensive play by Stillman, who picked off an ill-advised cross-ice pass by the Ducks’ Ruslan Salei. Stillman then passed to Scott Mellanby, who found Pavol Demitra standing alone near the left post. All Giguere could do was wave as Demitra scored easily to give the Blues the first goal of the game at 12:22.

“We made a mistake when we went rink-wide and tried to force the play,” Anaheim Coach Mike Babcock said. “They knocked it down, and it was in the back of our net.”

The Ducks appeared headed to their third 1-0 loss in five games until Krog stepped up to score his third goal in two games.

After Steve Rucchin drew two St. Louis defenders to him as he went for a rebound, Krog picked up the loose puck to tie the score, at 1-1, at 7:35 of the third.

Anaheim then added a power-play goal by Havelid at 14:05. Forward Dan Bylsma made the goal possible when he drew a high-sticking penalty from the Blues’ Alexander Khavanov. That led to the power play in which Havelid’s blue-line shot deflected off St. Louis defenseman Bryce Salvador into the net.

“We know that we can score a lot of goals and a 1-0 lead is not the end of the world,” Giguere said. “We know that we can come back as long as we work really hard and take things one shift at a time.”