RALEIGH, N.C. — Sam Steel scored on a breakaway 1:36 into overtime to lift the Anaheim Ducks over the Carolina Hurricanes 2-1 Friday night.
Erik Gudbranson also had a goal and Ryan Miller stopped 25 shots for Anaheim, which enters a nine-day break following consecutive wins.
Sebastian Aho scored and James Reimer made 35 saves for Carolina, which played its first game without Dougie Hamilton after the All-Star defenceman broke his right leg Thursday at Columbus.
Hamilton has 14 goals, 40 points and ranks second among all skaters with a plus-30 rating this season. The 26-year-old was picked for the All-Star Game for the first time. He had surgery to repair his fibula Friday and is expected to be out for two to three months.
“It’s a big loss but all teams go through this at some point and we’ll see how we respond,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said before the game on Friday.
Hurricanes forward Brock McGinn had a critical scoring chance in the final seconds of regulation but was stopped by Miller.
Aho gave the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead at 3:59 in the first period. He tipped in a shot from Joel Edmundson.
The Ducks tied it when Ryan Getzlaf skated around the net and attracted Carolina’s defence to the right side of the ice, leaving Gudbranson alone on the left. The Anaheim defencemen beat Reimer at 18:18 in the first to tie the game at 1-1.
Neither team scored in the second period. Miller made a big save on a short-handed breakaway by Aho early in the period.
Reimer stopped a point-blank shot by Daniel Sprong with 4:45 left in the period to keep the score even.
It has been a difficult first part of the season for the Ducks (19-24-5), but they head into their bye week and the All-Star break with road wins over Nashville and Carolina after losing six of their previous seven games.
NOTES
Hurricanes D Jaccob Slavin was named as Hamilton’s replacement on the Metropolitan Division team in the All-Star Game. … Haydn Fleury, who has five points in 25 games, was added to Carolina’s lineup to take Hamilton’s spot.
UP NEXT
Hurricanes: Host the New York Islanders on Sunday.
Ducks: Off until a game at San Jose on Jan. 27.
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The Associated Press