Recap: Ducks Down Blue Jackets 4-2 in Gibson's Season Debut

Leo Carlsson scored a third-period goal and John Gibson made 39 saves in his first appearance of the season, guiding the Ducks to a 4-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight at Honda Center.

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With the win, Anaheim improved to 5-7-2 on the season and 3-4-0 on home ice.

Brett Leason, Jackson LaCombe, Leo Carlsson and Isac Lundestrom scored for the Ducks, helping the club snap a four-game winless skid. Cutter Gauthier, Ross Johnston, Radko Gudas, Troy Terry, Brian Dumoulin, Ryan Strome, Brock McGinn and Frank Vatrano collected assists.

Gibson, returning from an emergency appendectomy in training camp, stopped 39-of-41 Columbus shots in his season debut. The 12th-year Duck is 12 wins shy of matching J.S. Giguere for the most in franchise history.

Yegor Chinakhov and Kirill Marchenko scored for the Blue Jackets, whose fifth straight loss dropped the team to 5-7-2 on the season. Goaltender Daniil Tarasov made 25 saves.

Anaheim wasted little time getting the home crowd into the game, going ahead first when Leason crashed the net and converted a perfect centering pass from Gauthier in the corner.

While still searching for his first NHL goal, Gauthier is tied for second on the Ducks in assists (five) and fifth in points (0-5=5).

Leason and Johnston each tallied their second point of the season on the goal.

Zellweger nearly doubled the Anaheim advantage later in the period on a power play where the Ducks did everything but score, but the young blueliner's shot hit the crossbar and bounced wide of the net.

Instead Columbus would briefly tie the game with a power-play goal early in the second, a one-timer by Chinakhov that just barely snuck through Gibson and over the goal line.

Longtime Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski assisted on the tying tally while skating in his 500th career NHL game. Werenski is one of just seven American defensemen to hold a franchise's all-time record in points, goals and assists - a list that also includes Anaheim's Cam Fowler.

The tie score would last less than five minutes though, as shortly thereafter the Ducks would get rewarded for a long shift in the Columbus zone. Just seconds after Terry had run the post on a pass from linemate Trevor Zegras, Gudas fired another shot on net and LaCombe won the race to the rebound, lifting it over Tarasov from in tight to put Anaheim back ahead.

The goal was LaCombe's third in the NHL and his second point in eight appearances so far this year.

With the assist, Terry has now found the scoresheet in 11 of Anaheim's 14 games this season.

Carlsson then provided what would prove to be a massive insurance marker midway through the third, taking a pass from Dumoulin in the high slot and wiring a wrister just under the crossbar for a 3-1 Ducks lead.

The 19-year-old Carlsson co-leads in Anaheim in goals (five) and now owns seven points in 14 games on the season.

Strome's helper was also his seventh point of the new campaign. Now in his third season as a Duck, Strome ranks in the team's top-five in points, goals and assists thus far.

Columbus got back within one in the game's final minutes, when Marchenko beat Gibson from the slot late in an extended shift, and nearly leveled the score seconds later on a shot off the post by winger Mathieu Olivier, but Lundestrom's empty-netter would cap the scoring in Anaheim's 4-2 victory.

The Ducks continue a six-game homestand Wednesday against Vegas.