Ducks end losing streak with victory over Avalanche

In a test of their mettle, the Ducks were saved by a piece of metal.

A 3-2 victory over the Colorado Avalanche ended their five-game losing streak Sunday at the Honda Center, but only after Milan Hejduk’s long shot down the goal line rang off the far post with less than one second left.

“A shot hits the crossbar, hits the post, comes out,” Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle said. “That elevated everybody’s heart rate, that’s for sure.”

They can breathe a sigh of relief for now. Their win over the next-to-last team in the Western Conference didn’t pull them back into playoff position, but it kept them from losing more ground.

Their goaltending is not stellar, but it has stabilized with newly acquired Dan Ellis in the net as the Ducks wait for All-Star goalie Jonas Hiller to recover from vertigo symptoms.

Hiller has been taking some shots before practice, but he isn’t yet cleared and said Sunday in the dressing room that “nobody can really tell me,” when the problem will be resolved. He smiled as he said it, but the uncertainty is uncomfortable.

The Ducks traded backup Curtis McElhinney to Tampa Bay for Ellis after a stretch in which McElhinney gave up 21 goals in three games. Ellis has not been perfect, but he hasn’t allowed more than three goals in either of his two starts.

A third would have sent Sunday’s game to overtime.

“I didn’t see it at all,” Ellis said. “I was down trying to cover everything low and on that post, and all of a sudden the puck came out of nowhere. It hit me in the side of the head and then I heard it hit a post. I was just praying it was the right post. Thank God it stayed out.”

Thanks to goals from Ryan Getzlaf and Todd Marchant and a third-period power-play goal by 20-year-old rookie Brandon McMillan, the Ducks stayed afloat.

Marchant’s goal ended a 70-game goal drought dating to a game against Chicago on March 17, 2010.

“My son scored a goal the other day in his game and said, ‘Now it’s your turn, Dad,’” said Marchant, who said he was ribbed by everyone from Carlyle to the linesmen.

McMillan scored the game-winner as he was battling in front of the net with 56 seconds left in a four-minute power play when he got a stick on the rebound of Bobby Ryan’s shot from the left circle with 8:37 to play.

The Ducks earned the long power play after Brandon Yip’s double minor for high-sticking Francois Beauchemin.

Kevin Porter and David Jones scored for Colorado, which has lost 13 of its last 14 games.

The Ducks’ streak stopped here.

“Any time a team is going through a difficult time or a little bit of a slump, it’s always an ugly one or a gritty one that usually gets you out of it,” Ellis said.

Etc.

In a trade of minor-league players, the Ducks acquired forward Brian McGrattan and defenseman Sean Zimmerman from Boston for forwards Stefan Chaput and David Laliberte. McGrattan, who has appeared in 182 NHL games but has not played in the NHL this season, will report to Syracuse in the American Hockey League, as will Zimmerman Saku Koivu missed a third game in a row because of a strained groin.

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