Despite a strong early push from the Panthers, the Ducks opened the scoring when Mason McTavish buried his own rebound on the doorstep to make it 1-0 at 11:46 of the first period.
On the power play, the Ducks doubled their lead when Frank Vatrano, playing in his first game back in Sunrise after skating in 271 games over parts of five seasons with the Panthers from 2017-18 to 2021-22, fired a long rebound right past Sergei Bobrovsky to make it 2-0 at 15:20.
Getting the Panthers on the board in the second period, Eric Staal tipped a shot from Radko Gudas past Gibson to slice the deficit to 2-1 at 2:12. Later in the middle frame, Staal nearly earned a second goal, but his score was negated after Anaheim challenged for interference.
Still, the Panthers felt momentum was back on their side.
"We know where we're at and we know we need these points," Staal said. "It was a great response by everybody to stay with it and ultimately get the two points at the end of the night, which was big for us. Now, we get a couple days to recover and be excited to get the next one."
From one Staal to another, Marc Staal tied up the game when he finished off a give-and-go with Matthew Tkachuk by crashing the net and sending the puck past Gibson to make it 2-2 at 17:23.
"I gave it to Chucky and put my stick on the ice far-post," Staal said. "You guys have seen him make plays like that all year long. He just put it right on my tape and I tapped it in."
Briefly putting the Ducks on top, Dmitry Kulikov ripped a shot from the slot past Bobrovsky, who was screened by Sam Carrick, to make it 3-2 at 12:51. But less than two minutes later, a shot from Gustav Forsling went off of Ryan Lomberg's skate and into the net to make it 3-3 at 14:09.
Coming up in the clutch in the extra frame, Verhaeghe was set free on a breakaway after some great work from Tkachuk and Eetu Luostarinen to get him the puck. With no one but Gibson to beat, Verhaeghe then made a quick deke before scoring off his forehand to lock down the 4-3 win.
