Teemu Selanne got the tying goal with 2:07 left in regulation and rookie defenseman Cam Fowler got the winner with 19 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Ducks a 5-4 victory at Calgary on Friday night. Anaheim's fifth consecutive road win moved the Ducks into a fifth-place tie with San Jose in the Western Conference race. Both teams trail Pacific Division-leading Dallas by two points.
Fowler buried a backhander past Miikka Kiprusoff for his seventh of the season.
"Luckily it went in," the 19-year-old said. "I didn't get as much on it as I would have liked and it looked like it fooled him a little bit. They always say that backhanders are the hardest to stop."
Fowler, who fell to Anaheim with the 13th pick in the Entry Draft last June, has given the Ducks a huge boost on the blue line following the retirement of Scott Niedermayer.
"Cam Fowler is an amazing hockey player," said Selanne, whose third assist of the night acme on the winner. "It's unbelievable that young guys like that can come into the league and dominate in pretty much every area. If this guy doesn't win the Norris Trophy one day, it's going to be a crime."
The win kept the Ducks two points ahead of Calgary in the tight Western Conference race. Calgary is still eighth, one point ahead of Minnesota.
"This was huge for us," Fowler said. "If we drop this one, Calgary jumps ahead of us in the standings and now we bump up to fourth. You can just see the degree of difficulty that's involved in a conference like this. Every game is huge and all the points matter and we're lucky to come out of here with two.
Saku Koivu scored twice and Brandon McMillan scored for the Ducks. Calgary got goals by Rene Bourque, Olli Jokinen, Jarome Iginla and Curtis Glencross. However, Glencross was in the box for hooking Corey Perry when Selanne one-timed Ryan Getzlaf's pass behind Kiprusoff to tie it with 2:07 left in regulation.
"It was a hard-fought game, a game that went back and forth," Flames coach Brent Sutter said. "Momentum changed at different times throughout the game, but when you're up a goal going into the last 2 minutes, you can't take a penalty."
Anaheim led 3-2 after two periods, but Iginla tied it by snapping a loose puck past Curtis McElhinney at 5:33 of the third after Ducks defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky saw his stick shatter during a clearing attempt.
Glencross, who scored the winning goal in each of the two previous games, had given the Flames a 4-3 lead at 8:18 of the third, snapping a shot over McElhinney's shoulder.
Despite the loss, Calgary takes an 8-0-2 streak into Saturday night's game in Vancouver against the Western Conference-leading Canucks.
"We got the one point and we've got to go forward," Glencross said. "We've got another game in 24 hours and we've got to go back out and get another two points."
After falling behind 2-1 earlier in the second on goals 41 seconds apart from Bourque and Jokinen, Anaheim regained the lead midway in the period on goals 2:38 apart. Koivu pumped his own rebound into a wide-open net at 7:34, and McMillan finished off a 2-on-1 by snapping a shot past Kiprusoff's glove at 10:12.
Although Jonas Hiller was activated from injured reserve on Friday, McElhinney made his third start in a row. McElhinney, who finished with 21 stops, is 6-5-1 on the season. In parts of three seasons with the Flames, he won just four times in 29 appearances.
"Curtis has been real strong with us," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said. "He's had more of an opportunity with us than he had with the Flames because of the situation he's in."
Material from wire services was used in this report
