Fowler, Rakell power Ducks past Coyotes
Cam Fowler scored the go-ahead goal midway through the third period, and a streaking Rickard Rakell scored two more goals, leading the Anaheim Ducks past the Arizona Coyotes 5-2 on Sunday in Anaheim, Calif.
Anaheim (18-14-8) won its fourth in five games but only its 10th in 21 home games.
Ducks goaltender John Gibson made 23 saves, and Anaheim got three goals in the final nine minutes.
Arizona dropped its second in a row and 10th in 12 games. The Coyotes are 9-27-5 at the midpoint of coach Rick Tocchet's first season.
About five minutes after Arizona's Clayton Keller tied the score at 2-2, Fowler found himself undefended above the circles. He beat goaltender Antti Raanta at 11:51 of the third with a hard wrist shot created by Jakob Silfverberg's pass from behind the goal line.
Coyotes forward Josh Archibald backed off his coverage of Fowler as the teams battled for the puck behind the net.
Silfverberg put the game away by scoring his 10th of the season with 2:47 remaining, with Fowler and Gibson assisting, and Antoine Vermette added an empty-net goal with 57 seconds to play for his third point of the game.
Ducks coach Randy Carlyle made a pregame move by shifting Vermette from fourth-line center to right wing on the Rakell-Ryan Getzlaf No. 1 line, and the shift paid off immediately. The three combined for seven points.
Rakell, going to the net, opened the scoring with his team-high 13th of the season, off a shot turned aside by Raanta (21 saves) before deflecting off defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson's skate and into the net with 4:02 gone.
Arizona, coming off a 7-4 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, came back with only its second goal in its last 16 power-play chances when defenseman Alex Goligoski, between the circles, set up Brendan Perlini at the top of the right circle for a hard shot that scooted along the ice and past Gibson at 11:04.
But, much as the Coyotes have done all season, they gave up a goal almost as quickly as they scored one. Only 43 seconds later, Getzlaf dug out the puck behind the net and fed Rakell, who was open in the right circle for a one-timer and his sixth goal during a five-game goal-scoring streak. Rakell has a team-high 14 goals.
Keller tied it at 6:52 of the third with Arizona's second power-play goal of the game, a deflection of Derek Stepan's shot after Stepan took the puck away from Anaheim's Adam Henrique. Keller has a team-high 14 goals and three goals during an eight-game scoring streak.
NOTES: Coyotes D Niklas Hjalmarsson, out since Nov. 28 with an upper-body injury, is practicing again and is close to returning, but did not play. ... The Coyotes played a road-heavy schedule during the first half of the season, but now return home to play the Nashville Predators (Thursday) and the New York Rangers (Saturday) ahead of their bye week. ... Arizona couldn't hold a 4-1 lead and lost its season opener 5-4 at Anaheim on Oct. 5, Rick Tocchet's first game as the Coyotes' coach. ... Anaheim didn't go on the power play until Coyotes LW Jordan Martinook took a hooking penalty 1:24 into the third period.