Ducks Sweep Road Trip

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) - Talk about a nice way to close out a road trip.

Jonas Hiller made 12 saves in his fifth shutout of the season, Bobby Ryan scored twice and the Anaheim Ducks beat the lowly Edmonton Oilers 4-0 on Sunday night.

"Shot-wise it might have been one of the easiest shutouts of my career," said Hiller, who now has 11 for his career. "But not getting a whole lot of shots, does sometimes make it tougher to stay focused. They did have a couple of chances. There were a couple of odd-man rushes, and things like that, so it wasn't an easy night, but it wasn't a whole lot of work."

Teemu Selanne and Brandon McMillan also scored for the Ducks (32-21-4), who have won four in a row - all on the road - and six of the last seven overall.

The last-place Oilers (16-32-8) have dropped three straight and 12 of 14. They are a league-worst 7-17-4 at home, and 0-6-1 in their last seven games at Rexall Place.

"This is the first game, I think, that we have only mustered 12 shots," forward Dustin Penner said. "Obviously you are not going to win if that happens. But there were other issues to worry about other than the shot total tonight."

Oilers coach Tom Renney was left shaking his head.

"Nothing surprises me with this squad right now," he said. "We're talking about mental toughness now. We have people that should be out there fighting for their jobs in the National Hockey League that needed to do more. We have others that have established themselves in the league that needed to take on some leadership.

"We had a team play poorly in front of a young goaltender who has been really good for us this year. They let him down."

Anaheim got off to a fast start behind Selanne, who put the Ducks' second shot of the game past Devan Dubnyk just 34 seconds into the first. Jason Blake spotted Selanne streaking to the net and put a pass on the veteran's stick for a redirection.

It was another bad start for the Oilers, who allowed goals on the first two shots they faced against Ottawa on Saturday with Nikolai Khabibulin in net, stretching his winless streak to 14 games.

"When you score early like that, it really set the tone for us," Ducks coach Randy Carlyle said.

Anaheim took a 2-0 lead at 15:24 of the second, capitalizing on one of many Oilers turnovers with Dan Sexton sending the puck to the net and McMillan tipping it home.

Another giveaway just over a minute later made it a three-goal game. The puck eventually came to Ryan at the side of the net and he beat a sprawling Dubnyk for his 26th of the season.

Ryan scored again early in the third, converting a pass from Corey Perry. Khabibulin replaced Dubnyk after the goal.

"I thought we got guilty of being too cute at times, but then got a big goal and the game started to go in our direction and we were fortunate we caught a tired hockey club tonight," Carlyle said.

NOTES: The Ducks outscored their opponents 16-7 on the road trip, which included shutouts at Colorado (Feb. 5) and at Edmonton (Feb. 13)...Anaheim is now tied for the division lead with Dallas (the Stars have one game in hand).

 The Ducks have won six straight games on the road, the longest current streak in the NHL and equaling the third-longest streak in the NHL this season (Dallas 8, Pittsburgh 7, Detroit also had 6)…the streak is the club's longest road win streak since a six-game stretch from Mar. 19 – Apr. 4, 2009 (club record is seven games).

 The Ducks road trip sweep (Colorado/Vancouver/Calgary/Edmonton) marked the third time in club history the team has won every game on a road trip of four games or more...the previous two occasions: Oct. 21-27, 2008 (4-0-0 through Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal/Columbus) and Nov. 19-24, 1993 (4-0-0 through Vancouver/Edmonton/Calgary/Winnipeg). 

Selanne's goal was the 100th game-winner of his career...he becomes the sixth player in NHL history to achieve the milestone, joining Gordie Howe (121), Phil Esposito (118), Jaromir Jagr (112), Brett Hull (110) and Brendan Shanahan (109).

The Ducks allowed only 12 shots tonight at Edmonton - the fewest shots allowed in a shutout in club history...the previous low was 14 (Bryzgalov, Oct. 28, 2006 at Chicago, 3-0 win).

 The Ducks have played Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton on the same road trip 13 times (this trip being the 13th)...this marked the second time the Ducks won all three of those games and the first since the club’s inaugural season (Nov. 19-22, 1993).

Anaheim has won four straight games overall…the team is 8-2-0 in the last 10 contests, 11-3-0 in the last 14, 14-4-0 in the last 18 and 19-8-1 over the last 28 games.