Ducks rally, beat Avalanche in OT

ANAHEIM – Chalk up another win for Team Resiliency.

This isn't the ideal formula for the Anaheim Ducks to spot the opposition a lead and come back, but they've made it their identity after a 4-3 overtime win Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche.

Anaheim won its sixth straight game, and all six are come-from-behind victories. The last National Hockey League team to win six straight when trailing in all six was the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2006. Anaheim is also 3-2 when trailing after 40 minutes.

"I'm getting older, the heart can't take this stuff," coach Bruce Boudreau said. "But in the end, a win is a win. In a perfect world, you'd like to jump out to a 2-0, 3-0 lead and snuff them right out and not give them anything."

Anaheim allowed the first goal for the 11th time in 16 games but improved to 8-2-1 in that situation after Corey Perry tipped Ryan Getzlaf's shot with 45.4 seconds remaining in overtime, a power-play tally that completed a comeback after the Ducks erased deficits of 2-0 and 3-2.

"That's not really the game plan," Teemu Selanne said to break up reporters in his postgame scrum. "And it was not planned to make Bruce lose his voice after the first period. By saying that, [it's] another poor start. Obviously, we can make all kind of excuses that we had six days we didn't play.

"The bottom line is we have to make sure everybody's ready and we haven't been ready. A good sign is that we have been finding a way to win the games and come from behind – that makes this team really strong. It's a good feeling when you have that confidence. But we can make these games a little easier by having better starts and playing 60 minutes."

Getzlaf completed a monster game with Perry as the two are re-discovering their dominance from seasons past. Getzlaf forced a tie at 3-3 with a tap-in of a puck that trickled through Jean-Sebastien Giguere's pads at 8:49, with Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog in the penalty box for slashing.

"I thought I had it," Giguere said. "That was a tip shot, and it found a way to squeak right through me. Sometimes that's the way it goes."

Getzlaf had a goal and two assists and won the faceoff on the overtime winner. He looks entirely different from his disappointing 2011-12 season and is on a contract year along with Perry. In other words, he's…

"Back to normal?" Getzlaf said. "I've said numerous times, I've struggled with many different things last season and I'm just happy to be feeling good again. I'm playing hockey and enjoying myself, and enjoying my teammates, and we're having success."

John Mitchell had sucked the air out of the building with an end-over-end shot between the legs of Ben Lovejoy that eluded Jonas Hiller that gave Colorado a 3-2 lead going into the third.

But Colorado got only one shot in the third period. Perry's winner came with Ryan O'Byrne off for hooking Cam Fowler. Anaheim went 3-for-5 on the power play.

"They have some players that can put the puck in the net," Giguere said. "That's a golden opportunity for them and that's a lesson we can learn because a good team will find a way to win on those types of power plays. That's the type of attitude and killer instinct we need to have.

"It's just disappointing to lose this game."

Forty seconds before Mitchell's goal, Teemu Selanne erupted the crowd with his 250th career power-play goal, on a one-timer from Saku Koivu to complete tape-to-tape sequence with Francois Beauchemin. Selanne moved into a tie with Luc Robitaille for 11th on the all-time goals list at 668.

"Obviously I have a lot of respect for that guy, he's a great guy," Selanne said. "It's a big honor."

The five-day rest was supposed to benefit the Ducks but they couldn't have started much worse against a Colorado team that looked like it wanted to redeem an ugly loss the previous night.

Cody McLeod deflected Matt Hunwick's slap shot from the top of the left circle at 2:28, and PA Parenteau wristed in a Tyson Barrie rebound that went right to him on the left side of the goal for a power-play strike and 2-0 lead at 12:54.

"[Saturday] was our worst game of the season and we responded tonight," said Parenteau, who ended a seven-game goal-scoring slump. "We came out swinging. We got a couple of bad bounces, but it was a good way to respond."

Fowler returned to the lineup for Anaheim for the first time since was knocked out of a Feb.2 game with an apparent concussion.