Ducks Cool Off Red-Hot Flyers

February 11, 1999 / 2:51 AM EST / AP

The Philadelphia Flyers entered Anaheim Arena with the NHL's best penalty-killing percentage in road games. The Mighty Ducks had the best power-play efficiency on home ice.

Something had to give Wednesday night, and it was Philadelphia's penalty killers who gave up three power play goals. Teemu Selanne scored the first of his two goals just 34 seconds into Anaheim's first power play, and the Ducks scored two more times with the man advantage en route to a 5-4 victory Wednesday night.

"It was a pretty interesting matchup," Selanne said. "Our power play was working really well. It makes a big difference when you can take advantage of your special teams."

Defenseman Fredrik Olausson had two goals and two assists, helping Anaheim hand Philadelphia only its second loss in 25 games and end an eight-game unbeaten streak by the Flyers.

The loss was the first by the Flyers this season against a Western Conference opponent (11-1-4) and also their first in 11 road games since Dec. 4, when Buffalo beat them 3-0.

"It's a big thing," Selanne said. "We knew Philly was going to be a tough team to beat, but everybody believed we could do it and we had a pretty solid effort.

"We were talking before the game, and even after the morning skate, that this was going to be a good test for our team to see how well we could compete with those guys. We did the things we wanted to do, and we deserved those two points."

Selanne recorded his 600th NHL point with an assist on Steve Rucchin's power-play goal as the Ducks won their fourth consecutive game and snapped their seven-game winless streak against Philadelphia.

"They've got a good team and they were hungry tonight," said Eric Lindros, who had two goals and two assists for the Flyers. "We weren't sharp off the opening faceoff. It looked like we were hesitating in the first period, and you can't hesitate against a team with that much speed and grit."

One of Lindros' goals came on a power play, and Daymond Langkow and John LeClair also scored with the man advantage. But the Flyers failed to cash in during two four-minute power plays. On the second one, they had a two-man advantage they had for a minute and 19 seconds in the third. On the first one, they failed to get a shot on net.

"We had three power play goals tonight, so you can't fault the power play. But it wasn't great on that particular sequence," Flyers coach Roger Nielson said. "There weren't many whistles, they were skating well and did a good job of killing it."

Lindros' four points, including his 31st goal, increased the All-Star center's season total to 73 second most in the NHL behind Jaromir Jagr's 75. He also extended his point-scoring streak to 14 games the longest in the league this season.

The Flyers, who allowed only two power play goals in 52 shorthanded situations over their previous 13 games, were victiized for the second time by Selanne at 13:37 of the second period while Mikael Renberg was serving a boarding penalty.

John Vanbiesbrouck made the save on Rucchin's 25-foot wrist shot from the slot, but Selanne converted the rebound for his 24th goal and a 3-1 lead after Flyers center Rod Brind'Amour overskated the puck.

"We know this is a quality team we were playing," LeClair said. They have a lot of speed and a lot of talented players. "So they didn't take us by surprise."

Lindros brought the Flyers within a goal less than 2 1/2 minutes later, getting a pass above the left circle from Eric Desjardins and moving in a few strides before putting a low wrist shot between Guy Hebert's pads.

It was the sixth time Lindros has reached the 30-goal mark in his seven NHL seasons. The only time he didn't was during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 campaign, when he had 29.

But Anaheim opened up a 5-2 lead with Rucchin's 18th goal and Olausson's 14th, chasing Vanbiesbrouck to the bench with 13:44 remaining.

"We battled on the second period to get it to one, and then they score a pair in the first five minutes," Lindros said.

"Olausson's goal was a big sword in the back. We can't sit back and wait for the play to come to us and think we're going to be able to pick up our socks when we're down 5-2 and try to make a game of it. That's a big hill to climb."

The Flyers, who killed off all 20 shorthanded situations in their previous five games, fell behind 1-0 just 34 seconds after Dan McGillis was sent off for cross-checking McInnis.

Olausson got a cross-ice pass in the middle of the right circle from McInnis and fed the puck to Selanne, who was left unchecked at the left of the crease and scored his 23rd goal at 7:25 of the opening period while Vanbiesbrouck was looking in the opposite direction.