VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Cutter Gauthier scored a hat trick for the second game in a row and the Anaheim Ducks held on for a 5-4 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night.
Mikael Granlund added a goal and two assists for the Ducks, while Leo Carlsson put away a short-handed tally and Beckett Sennecke had four assists.
Laurent Brossoit stopped 19 shots in the Anaheim net.
The Ducks came into the game with the league’s second-best power play (34%) behind only the Utah Mammoth and went 3 for 3 with the man advantage. Two of Gauthier's goals came on the power play and Anaheim has 10 power-play goals on 12 chances over its last three games.
The Canucks got two goals from Jake DeBrusk, and one each from Liam Ohgren and Linus Karlsson. Elias Pettersson notched a pair of assists. Vancouver goalie Kevin Lankinen made 17 saves.
Granlund opened the scoring with a power-play tally just over four minutes into the first period. Vancouver replied on a man advantage two minutes later. Marco Rossi fed Ohgren just above the crease for the goal.
The Ducks took a 2-1 lead into the intermission when Gauthier fired a shot in on his team’s second power play of the night at the 17:07 mark of the first.
Gauthier also scored three in Anaheim’s 6-3 comeback victory over the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, and is the first player in Ducks history with back-to-back three-goal games.
The 22-year-old American has eight goals in his last three games after going the previous nine without finding the net.
Gauthier was in the penalty box midway through the third when DeBrusk scored his fourth of the season to put the score at 5-3.
DeBrusk breathed new life into Rogers arena with just over 10 minutes left on the game clock, blasting a point shot in to cut Vancouver’s deficit to a single goal.
Ducks: At the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.
Canucks: At the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.
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