ANAHEIM, Calif. – Andy McDonald had two goals and an assist, Teemu Selanne scored his team-leading 18^th goal of the season and JS Giguere picked up his 100^th career win to lead the Ducks past the St. Louis Blues, 6-3, on Wednesday night at the Arrowhead Pond.

With the victory, Anaheim improved their record at the Arrowhead Pond to 13-6-3.  The Ducks are 7-1-1 in their last nine home games.

“Every game is a big game, said McDonald.  “We’ve got to win these games and this was important especially because of the break. We wanted to go off on a good note and win the last game so we could come back after Christmas with some momentum.”

Selanne (18, Salei, McDonald) started the Ducks’ four-goal first period by skating past Blues’ defenseman Steve Poapst and jamming in a long pass from Ruslan Salei inside the far post at 2:28 of the first.

The Blues answered back with a quick goal by center Dean McAmmond (11, Weight, Gamache) 38 seconds later at 3:06 to tie the game at one.

Anaheim got two more on special teams and one even-strength in the period to enter the break with a 4-1 lead.

McDonald (10, Sykora, S. Niedermayer) got his first of the game by stuffing a loose puck past Blues netminder Jason Bacashihua on the power play at 7:59.

With the Ducks shorthanded at 9:41 of the first, Jonathan Hedstrom and Samuel Pahlsson would break in the Blues’ zone 2-on-1 with Hedstrom feeding Pahlsson (2, Hedstrom) for his second goal of the season.

After Pahlsson’s shorthanded marker, Bacashihua was replaced by Reinhard Divis who was welcomed to the game by Tyler Wright less than a minute after entering.

Wright (2, Unassisted) pounced on a loose puck and beat Divis to give the Ducks a commanding 4-1 lead.

McDonald (11, Sykora) got his second on the night at 3:38 of the second period.  Petr Sykora fed a pretty between-the-legs pass off the half-wall and McDonald rifled a wrister over Divis’ left shoulder for a career-high 11^th goal of the season.

“I think I’ve been healthy this season,” said McDonald of his career-high marker. “I’ve been given a great opportunity to play with Teemu and Petr Sykora. They’re great players and when I’m on the ice with them, things are pretty easy out there.”

The Blues got two goals from Dennis Wideman (2, Cajanek) at 14:30 of the second period and Eric Brewer (5, McAmmond, Gamache) at 5:30 of the third to cut the Ducks lead to 5-3.

Joe DiPenta (1, Fedoruk, Konopka) put the game away with his first goal as a Mighty Duck at 6:19 of the third.

“I think that it was a game where we were able to get things going in a positive direction after the first shift,” said Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle. “We took a penalty right off the bat, but we were able to regroup and get ourselves going. We were fortunate to get enough pucks past them.”

Anaheim will now have six days without a game over the holidays before hitting the road to face Columbus (Dec. 28), St. Louis (Dec. 31), Nashville (Jan. 1), Dallas (Jan. 6) and Minnesota (Jan. 7). 

The Ducks will next play at the Arrowhead Pond on Monday, January 9th versus So Cal rival, the Los Angeles Kings at 7:30 PM.