Canucks rally with three goals late, top Ducks in OT to end slide at 10

ANAHEIM -- The Vancouver Canucks rallied with three goals late in the third period, including two with the goaltender pulled, before ending a 10-game losing streak with a 6-5 overtime victory against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Tuesday.

Filip Hronek completed the comeback by scoring a 5-on-3 power-play goal with 11 seconds left in overtime.

"When you string together as many losses as we have, it bleeds into the room and the morale takes a hit," Canucks coach Manny Malhotra said. "Not just getting a win, but a big come-from-behind win in the third (period), is obviously something we can build off of."

The deciding goal came after Jonathan Lekkerimaki tied it by scoring twice in 49 seconds with Leevi Merilainen pulled for an extra skater. He first cut it to 5-4 at 17:14 before making it 5-5 at 18:03 with a shot through a screen from above the left circle.

"He's elite in terms of his ability to get it off and pick corners," Malhotra said of Lekkerimaki. 

Jamie Oleksiak scored with a slap shot from above the hash marks to cut it to 5-3 at 12:54 of the third. 

"You get a goal like that and all of a sudden, you get a little buzz," Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said of Lekkerimaki's second goal. "But, we still had a chance to stabilize the game. We made a couple of funky plays there, an icing, a turnover, and very disappointing."

Brock Boeser had a goal and two assists, and forward Elias Pettersson had two assists for the Canucks (3-10-1), who were 0-9-1 during their losing streak. Merilainen made 18 saves.

"I'm hoping this turns a corner for us," Boeser said. "We played a lot better hockey the last two games, and in spurts, and we understand how we need to play."

A.J. Greer scored two goals, Leo Carlsson and Jeff Malott each had a goal and an assist for the Ducks (5-6-1), who have lost six of seven (1-5-1). Jackson LaCombe had three assists, Sam Colangelo had two assists and Lukas Dostal made 27 saves.

"That can't happen," Ducks captain Mikael Granlund said of the blown lead. "It's unacceptable and we've got to do a better job closing out these games."

The Ducks took a 1-0 lead at 15:52 of the first period after Greer tried to center a pass to Tim Washe cutting through the slot, but it went off the stick blade of Hronek and into his own net.

Vancouver tied it 1-1 at 6:36 of the second period when Liam Ohgren tried to center a pass to Zeev Buium off a rush, but the puck went off the skate of Anaheim defenseman Tristan Luneau and into his own net.

The Ducks regained the lead 30 seconds later after a long rebound came to LaCombe in the right circle. LaCombe quickly fed Malott in front of the crease and he scored with the tip-in to make it 2-1 at 7:06.

Anaheim was on a power play when Beckett Sennecke deflected a shot by Cutter Gauthier for a 3-1 lead at 15:44.

Merilainen gave up another long rebound that went off Buium and back into the crease, where Carlsson pushed it across the goal line for a 4-1 lead at 18:24.

Boeser scored when the puck rebounded off his body and into the Anaheim net to cut it to 4-2 at 11:40 of the third. Ducks forward Alex Killorn attempted to swat the puck away from the net but it instead hit off of Boeser's chest and got past Dostal.

"That was a terrible loss," Quenneville said. "You know, 5-2 and we're in a pretty good spot. Not a pretty good spot, we should have had to seal the win. I think we do some things that come back to haunt us after a night like tonight. Giving them some life with some plays that we make with possession and, all of a sudden, they go the other way, or it's in our net. 

"We carelessly make plays senselessly. I think that's where we've got to be smarter. We've got to play smarter as a team, and we've got to be doing the little things right, especially at those times of the game, where they've got to manufacture."

Anaheim answered 43 seconds later when Greer scored his second of the game with a tip off a Colangelo point shot to make it 5-2 at 12:23.

"In the past few weeks, there were some instances where we went away," Malhotra said. "We never want to be a team that goes away. So, the fact we were able to keep our heads about us, stay with the process and get rewarded for it, obviously that's great for our morale, great for the group and gives us something to build off of."

NOTES: The Canucks are in 9-2-0 in their past 11 games against the Ducks. ... Carlsson scored the 65th goal of his NHL career to pass Lucas Raymond for the second-most goals by a Swedish player before age 22. Mats Sundin leads with 83. Carlsson has six multipoint games this season and 15 points (four goals, 11 assists) in 12 games. ... Sennecke has a goal in four straight home games. He has 30 NHL goals in 94 games, becoming the fourth fastest to reach that mark in team history behind Paul Kariya (63 games), Bobby Ryan (81) and Dustin Penner (92).