John Gibson made 38 saves in his season debut as the host Anaheim Ducks snapped a four-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday night.
Brett Leason, Jackson LaCombe, Leo Carlsson and Isac Lundestrom scored goals for Anaheim, which picked up just its second win in the past eight games. It also marked the first time since a 5-4 overtime win over Utah on Oct. 16 that the Ducks scored four goals in a game.
Gibson, making his 467th career start in his 12th season, picked up his 194th career victory for the Ducks. The 31-year-old had missed the start of the season after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery in September.
Kirill Marchenko had a goal and an assist and Yegor Chinakhov also scored for Columbus, which lost its fifth straight game. Daniil Tarasov finished with 26 saves.
Anaheim, which entered the game having scored an NHL-low 27 goals, jumped out to a 1-0 lead at the 3:13 mark of the first period on Leason’s first goal of the season. Cutter Gauthier set up the score with a backhand pass from below the goal line to Leason in front of the crease.
Columbus, playing the second half of a back-to-back set that began with a 5-2 loss at Los Angeles on Saturday, tied it near the end of the period on a power-play goal by Chinakhov. He blasted a one-timer from the right point that squeaked past Gibson for his fourth goal of the season.
Anaheim took a 2-1 at 4:22 of the second period when LaCombe roofed in a rebound of a Radko Gudas one-timer from the top of the crease for his first goal.
Carlsson made it 3-1 at 10:20 of the third period with a spinning wrist shot from the slot off Brian Dumoulin’s pass for his fifth goal.
Marchenko cut it to 3-2 with 3:03 remaining when he snapped in a wrist shot from the top of the slot for his sixth goal.
Columbus pulled Tarasov for an extra attacker late in the third and Lundestrom added an empty-netter to finish the scoring.
–Field Level Media
