Anaheim Ducks 3, Carolina Hurricanes 1 FINAL

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- With all the trouble the Anaheim Mighty Ducks have had on the road this season they'll certainly take a lucky bounce.

Ruslan Salei scored a fluke short-handed goal, and the Mighty Ducks won consecutive road games for the first time in two months by beating the Carolina Hurricanes 3-1 Wednesday night.

Goaltender Kevin Weekes has been Carolina's most valuable player in the first half of the season, but his blunder on the power play gave the Mighty Ducks the go-ahead score less than two minutes after the Hurricanes tied it.

Weekes came out of the net to play a bank shot off the boards by Salei from Anaheim's side of center ice. However, the puck took a crazy bounce and Weekes couldn't recover to make the save early in the second period.

"The rule is when the puck is on the glass, the goalie can't leave the net," Anaheim coach Mike Babcock said. "A real tough break for them, a real good break for us."

Salei didn't hesitate to say his game-winner was mostly due to good fortune.

"A lucky goal is a lucky goal and we're all excited about it," the defenseman said. "We're trying to get on a roll and this is huge for us."

Weekes said the bad bounce was 1-out-of-100.

"After you're out there and you're anticipating the wraparound there is no way you can physically get back if you're behind the net," Weekes said. "It's frustrating, but those are bounces, and the majority of times that's not going to happen."

The Mighty Ducks, who beat Tampa Bay 2-0 Monday, limited the Hurricanes to 18 shots. Carolina has scored just 12 goals in nine games.

"We got outskated. The team that worked harder and won those one-on-one battles and skated harder won the game," Carolina coach Peter Laviolette said. "It's pretty simple for me."

Carolina lost any hope of a third-period comeback when Josef Vasicek and Erik Cole took penalties 28 seconds apart midway through the period. Sergei Fedorov made the Hurricanes pay, scoring his team-leading 13th with seven seconds left on the power play.

"We took penalties that by no means a team in our position should be taking," Laviolette said. "We should have known before our actions there would be consequences. It's not like we had somebody breaking in the back door for a scoring chance that we felt like we had to slash.

"They were just mindless. There was no just no need whatsoever."

A slumping Rod Brind'Amour tied it 1-1 five minutes into the second when he scored on his own rebound. The Carolina center came in with 342 career goals but has just four in 37 games this season.

Carolina fell behind for the fifth straight game when Andy McDonald tipped in a nice centering pass from Steve Rucchin midway through the first.