Ducks score early, late in win against Panthers

SUNRISE, Fla.-- Nick Ritchie scored with 1:28 left in the third period to give Anaheim Ducks a 3-2 win against the Florida Panthers at BB&T Center on Wednesday.

"Obviously being a bigger guy I like to get to the front of the net," said Ritchie, who is 6-foot-2, 234 pounds. "It's a place where I need to do it on this team. I've done a good job of it the last couple of games and I got rewarded for it."
Ritchie also scored the game-winning goal in the third period of a 3-1 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.
WATCH: [All Ducks vs. Panthers highlights]
John Gibson made 42 saves for Anaheim (12-10-5), who took a 1-0 lead 15 seconds into the game on a goal by Josh Manson.
Aaron Ekblad and Evgenii Dadonov scored for the Panthers (9-10-4), who took a season-high 44 shots on goal. James Reimer, making his third start with Roberto Luongo out with a knee injury, made 22 saves.
"It is frustrating," Florida forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. "These kind of games we've got to at least get a point. We can't get scored on late like that. You've got to battle through it the whole 60 (minutes)."
Ritchie made it 3-2 when he got the puck in front of the net and shot it past Reimer to the blocker side. He tied it 2-2 at 12:28 of the second period when he tipped Marcus Pettersson's shot from the point.

"Actually, I didn't think he was playing very well in the first period and we actually thought about moving him off the (second) line," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said of Ritchie. "And then next thing he tips one in and he finds a way to get the big one at the end and he made a nice play."
Manson's shot from the point bounced off Florida defenseman Bogdan Kiselevich to become the second-fastest goal in Ducks history, behind Paul Kariya's goal at eight seconds against the Carolina Hurricanes on March 9, 1997.
"That was a big goal for us, that first one," Ritchie said. "It's tough running back to back. It's not easy games, and to get a lead, it backed us off a little bit and settled us in. We didn't play a great game, but it was good enough to win."

Florida tied it 1-1 at 3:01 of the second period when Ekblad skated in from the point and one-timed Aleksander Barkov's pass from behind the net. Dadonov made it 2-1 with a power-play goal at 9:23, when he redirected Huberdeau's hard pass from the point.
"The first shot of the night went in the net on a tough bounce," Panthers coach Bob Boughner said. "I thought we controlled the second period. I thought the third period was fairly even, back and forth, we didn't give a lot. We couldn't find the third goal. We haven't been good at winning these 2-1 or 3-2 hockey games lately."
Anaheim has won four of five and is 4-1-2 in its past seven games.
"It's still early, but it's quite a few games into the season, so we're still trying to figure it out, but it's definitely stepping stones in the right direction," Gibson said. "It's something we can build off of and hopefully carry it throughout the road trip and through Christmas."

They said it

"It helps obviously when you do score goals and make plays. I don't want to change anything. I just want to play the same way and play that simple style, drive the net, and hopefully this success can keep following me." -- Ducks forward Nick Ritchie
"(John Gibson is) a good goalie. We had a lot of chances and a lot of shots, but we've got to find a way to put some in the net." -- Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau

Need to know

Panthers defenseman Keith Yandle played his 738th consecutive game, the sixth-longest streak in NHL history. Yandle passed Jay Bouwmeester, whose streak started with the Panthers on March 6, 2004 and ended Nov. 23, 2014 with the St. Louis Blues. Craig Ramsay is fifth at 776 games, and the NHL record is held by Doug Jarvis at 964. ... Ekblad has five goals in the past nine games after not scoring in the first 14. ... Huberdeau has a streak of three consecutive games with two assists. ... This was the third of a five-game road trip for the Ducks, but it ended their first Moms Trip, which began with a 5-2 loss at the Nashville Predators on Sunday.

What's next

Ducks: At the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; FS-CR, PRIME, NHL.TV)
Panthers: Host the Buffalo Sabres on Friday (7 p.m. ET; SNE, SNO, SNP, FS-F, MSG-B, NHL.TV)