Gibson makes 37 saves, Ducks defeat Blues

ST. LOUIS -- John Gibson made 37 saves, and Antoine Vermette scored two goals to lift the Anaheim Ducks to a 3-2 win against the St. Louis Blues at Scottrade Center on Wednesday.
"We need him and we wanted to come out and play well in front of him," Vermette said of Gibson. "Tonight, he stood up big for us."

Kevin Roy had a goal and an assist for the Ducks (11-10-4), who ended a four-game losing streak with seven injured players out of the lineup. Anaheim is 1-1-1 on a six-game road trip.
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"When you get thumped like we did [Monday in a 7-3 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks], you look for a response from your group, and we knew that we could play a lot better brand of hockey and we knew we could be competitive," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "You can't go out and say you're going to win every game, but we did not give ourselves a chance [Monday], and tonight, we gave ourselves a chance to do that, to win a hockey game."

Gibson was pulled against the Blackhawks after allowing four goals on 22 shots.
"It's going to happen to everybody throughout the year," Gibson said. "It's part of the game."
Kyle Brodziak scored two goals in the third period, and Jake Allen made 27 saves for the Blues (17-7-1), who are 2-2-0 on a five-game homestand.
The Blues were critical of their penalty kill after allowing two power-play goals for the second game in a row. They have allowed at least one power-play goal in 15 of 25 games and are 27th in the NHL on the penalty kill (75.9 percent).
"I'm not exactly sure," Brodziak said. "We're getting scored on quite a bit all year, basically. Early on, we were getting scored on, and that might have hurt the confidence. It felt like we were starting to get it back together, but the last few games, same thing. We give up two more tonight. It's really the story of the game pretty much.
"... A game like tonight, penalty kill could have found a way to win a game for us. Instead, we found a way to lose a game for us tonight."
The Ducks were 4-for-4 on the penalty kill despite allowing 13 shots.
"Your No. 1 penalty-killer 99 percent of the time is the goaltender," Carlyle said. "Our goaltenders have (given) us quality goaltending all year. Tonight was another example of that."
Vermette scored to give the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 4:17 of the first period when the puck caromed off his body after Allen got a piece of Roy's shot off a rebound.
The Ducks took a 3-0 lead with two power-play goals in the second period.

Roy made it 2-0 with a one-timer from the right face-off circle 33 seconds into the period after Jakob Silfverberg one-touched Cam Fowler's cross-ice pass.
After Allen made the save on Chris Wagner's deflection of a Kevin Bieksa shot from the right point, Vermette scored his second of the night on the long rebound to make it 3-0 at 3:01.
Brodziak ended Gibson's shutout at 16:12 of the third period and scored again with 16.7 seconds remaining to make it 3-2.
"We were too little, too late tonight," Brodziak said.

Goal of the game

Roy's goal 33 seconds into the second period.

Saves of the game

Gibson stopping Jaden Schwartz at 9:47 and 9:49 of the second period.

Highlight of the game

Vermette's goal at 3:01 of the second period.

They said it

"It's nice. At the end of the day, you just want to win and it doesn't matter how you can contribute. When it happens in this fashion, that's great. You know it's always helpful and we will take it, and it came in good timing tonight." -- Ducks center Antoine Vermette on scoring two goals
"Maybe we were looking at what they were missing. I don't know. Obviously, we talked about it and we tried to address it. We knew after their last outing that they were going to come out hard, check hard, but we didn't match their desperation." -- Blues coach Mike Yeo on the Ducks missing key players to injury

Need to know

Silfverberg did not play in the third period because of an upper-body injury. ... Anaheim was without center Ryan Getzlaf (face), center Ryan Kesler (hip surgery), center Rickard Rakell (upper body), defenseman Brandon Montour (elbow), right wing Patrick Eaves (illness), right wing Jared Boll (lower body) and forward Ondrej Kase (upper body). ... Blues center Patrik Berglund had three shots on goal in 14:28 in his season debut. He missed the first 24 games while recovering from shoulder surgery. … St. Louis center Brayden Schenn was held without a point for the third straight game after an NHL career-high eight-game point streak (seven goals, 12 assists). … Former Ducks and Blues forward Paul Kariya, inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Nov. 13, dropped the ceremonial first puck.

What's next

Ducks: At the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday (7 p.m. ET; FS-O, PRIME, NHL.TV)
Blues: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Friday (8 p.m. ET; FS-MW, FS-W, NHL.TV)